or "Stung by an Egg-Celent Plan"
Rainbow Dash’s light, nearly transparent wings fluttered in the cool afternoon breeze and her antennae twitched. She hovered in the air surrounded by all her friends except Fluttershy. An animal emergency had called her away at the very last minute and, despite the importance of the meeting, was unable to be there. Rainbow Dash looked from friend to friend and took note of their expressions: Twilight looking pleased with herself, Pinkie just standing there smiling, Applejack was trying and failing to suppress her laughing, and Rarity admiring Rainbow’s new body. Rainbow Dash might have been smiling on the outside but on the inside she was quite disappointed. The silence was almost awkward while the ponies waited for somepony to say something. Finally, Rainbow Dash broke the silence.
"You know, Twi, when you said you picked me for a magic spell fueled undercover mission, I expected to be disguised as, you know, not a breezie. I was thinking something, well... bigger. And cooler."
"Like a griffin?" deadpanned Twilight. Her pleased expression quickly turned to one of annoyance. It was as if she had heard that same request over and over again, every other day, since the time they helped out the Breezies.
As usual, Rainbow Dash didn’t pick up on Twilight’s mannerisms nor her tone of voice "Exactly! Let's do that! Breezies are so uncool," Rainbow Dash blurted out.
"Rainbow Dash, this is an undercover mission to infiltrate a changeling hive. Your speed combined with your current size will give a 99% guarantee you can find what we need without ever being detected."
Rainbow Dash started to tune out Twilight’s words. Her mind wandered to other thoughts as a small, devious smile crept on her face. She began to imagine other things she could do at her size. Things she could do and not get caught. Things much more exciting than a boring old mission to a changeling hive. In fact, she could pop over to Sweet Apple Acres and get into the Apple family's stash of-
Rainbow's train of thought was interrupted when her vision turned purple. She blinked and was brought back to reality. “Hey, wha-” Before she knew it Rainbow Dash was held in a purple magical aura just in front of Twilight’s face. Twilight had seen the look in Rainbow's eyes and her devious smile; she had a hunch what the breezie was thinking. While Rainbow Dash was held in front of Twilight’s face, Twilight frowned disapprovingly.
"Stick to the mission, Rainbow Dash! That means no sneaking into the cider barn for free cider!” chastised Twilight.
“And no sneaking into the barn to try and catch me and Big Mac going at it!” continued Applejack.
“No trying to spy on Scootaloo in the bathroom, dear,” said Rarity.
“And no trying to get Gilda to use you as some kind of perverted toy!" laughed Pinkie Pie as she hopped in place.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and waved a hoof dismissively at the others. “Out of all the things you ever mention, why is it ALWAYS the AJ thing? I’ve told you time and again that I know that AJ/Big Mac thing was just a rumor the Cutie Mark Crusaders printed in their newspaper!” she complained. Rainbow eyed each of her friends suspiciously, pointing a tiny leg accusingly at the group.
"You haven't been playing around with those shipping cards again have you?" she accused. When Twilight let out a choked eep and a bright red blush formed on her face as well as the others looking away or down at the ground in embarrassment, Rainbow Dash had her answer.
"That's none of your business what we do in our free time!" Twilight squeaked out with an annoyed and embarrassed tone in her voice. "Besides, this has nothing to do with...," she continued before placing a hoof to her forehead and clearing her throat. She was desperately trying to get back on track with what she had been saying. "Look, just stick to the plan and don't go gallivanting off. I mean it, Rainbow Dash! No showing off!"
"Yeah, yeah," was the mare's semi interested, dismissive reply. "Go in, find the thing, and get out. Easy peezy, lemon squeezey!"
Pinkie Pie popped her head up next to Twilight's, an excited look on her face.
"Rainbow Dash is bringing us back lemon squeezies?"
"No, Pinkie, Rainbow is bringing bac-"
Before Twilight could finish her statement, Rainbow dashed off as fast as she could toward the edge of the Everfree Forest. “Rainbow wait!” she called out.
"I'll be back before you can say 'Rainbow Rocks'!"
“Rainbow Dash!”
"Whoo! Rainbow Rocks!" There was a pause before the same voice spoke up again. "Hey! She isn't back yet!" Pinkie complained. "At least she'll bring us back lemon squeezies!" Twilight just facehoofed and shook her head, walking away in silence.
Rainbow Dash zipped about left and right. She dodged falling twigs and leaves, a drop or two of morning dew from overhanging branches, and made sure to fly around the thick bushes as she made her way to… to… She flared her wings and screeched to a halt to hover in midair, scratching the back of her head.
“Uh? Wait. I don’t know where I’m going… or what I’m looking for,” she mumbled to herself as she looked around the area. She had dashed off so fast that she hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings. She wasn’t exactly sure where exactly she was, nor was she sure she’d be able to find her way back to her friends. Before she lost all hope, though, she gasped. “Oh! Right! That note!” Rainbow Dash pulled out the large scrap of paper that Twilight had shoved into her small pouch before she had left and read it.
‘Dear Rainbow Dash, Knowing you, you probably ran off without stopping to think about important questions, such as where you’re going or what you’re looking for.’
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and gave a chuckling sigh as she read. “Twilight knows me a little TOO well, it’s almost scary!” she snickered aloud. She glanced around at her surroundings again before she shifted her gaze back down to the paper to continue reading.
‘On the back of this note is a map that indicates where you need to go. Yes, the path takes you close to Applejack’s farm but remember, no stopping for cider! As for the item, it’s a small green orb. I think it might hold the key to defeating the changelings for good. Its’ location is also indicated on the map. I’m counting on you to get it and return as soon as possible. Good luck! ~Twilight Sparkle’
Unbeknownst to Rainbow Dash, she was being watched. Something had followed what they thought was a breezie at a far enough distance to not be detected. They hid behind a large flower, watching the breezie curiously. What was a group of breezies doing in that part of the woods. But when they noticed there was only a single breezie they formed a plan. A single breezie would definitely do for what they had in mind. All they needed was one distracted opportunity to put it in motion. With Rainbow Dash reading her note, more than likely this was their opening.
Rainbow Dash had just finished reading her note and was in the process of flipping over the note. She was about to look at the map when she heard an odd buzzing sound. She paused and looked up from her map, looking first left, then right. She could tell the sound was close but didn’t see what could be making it. Rainbow just gave a shrug and glanced back down at her map. She HAD to figure out where she was and where she was going.
Her ear twitched as the buzzing sound got closer. Rainbow Dash glanced up from the map again to find the source of the sound.
“Gah! Am I hearing things again? What’s that buzzing soun-”
Rainbow’s words got cut off when she was nearly struck by a black and yellow blur. Unfortunately for her, said blur struck the note she was holding and tore it from her tiny hooves. Too distracted with the blur, Rainbow Dash didn’t see where the note had landed on the ground, the paper blending in with the debris below. Realizing the map was no longer in her hooves, Rainbow Dash quickly glanced down at the ground and groaned.
“Hey! That was my map!” she called out, her tone seething with rage. “I’ll never find it in all that debris!” With a growl, Rainbow Dash turned her head to find the offending creature, her anger bubbling to the surface.
“Show yourself coward! Or I’ll!-”
She never got a chance to finish her threat. The black and yellow blur dive bombed Rainbow Dash again. With her distracted and her anger clouding her judgement, Rainbow Dash was not expecting another attack. This time the blur barely grazed against the breezie, who definitely felt a slight pain. It was almost as if the thing was toying with her! With a scowl growing on her face she turned to try and keep an eye on that blur and, once she found where it was, took off after it.
“That’s it. Get back here! So help me, I swear to Celestia you’ve decided to mess with the wrong-”
Her words cut off when she flared her wings wide to slow her speed to a halt. She stopped in front of not one, not two, but three of what was causing the black and yellow blur. Wasps. She gulped when she realized she had been led right into a trap. Rainbow Dash watched the three wasps close in around her. With a sheepish grin, she looked back and forth between the three slowly approaching her.
“Eh heh.. I uh… I don’t suppose you’ll let me go, wouldya?” asked Rainbow Dash as she slowly tried to back away from the three wasps. When she felt the prickly legs of one of the wasps on her back, she turned her head to stare at the thing. She knew she was trapped but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t go down without a fight. She flared her wings and gave a hard flap. She tried to get herself free from the wasp’s grip while aiming a kick at one of the others. The one on her back pulled her away to keep the other wasp just out of striking range. Rainbow Dash lashed out blindly, in hopes of striking something or wiggling free. In a brief pause in her strikes, the other two swarmed onto the breezie to subdue her.
“H-hey! Get off!” she cried out. With one hard buck she managed to get the wasp off her back. She flailed about her tiny hooves in an attempt to get the other two wasps off of her. Rainbow Dash had nearly freed one of her legs when she felt the scratchy legs on the back of her neck again. Before she could try and figure out what was going on, she felt a sharp, burning pain jabbed into her neck. The wasp had stung her. An odd, almost pleasant warmth slowly coursed through her body. The sting was laced with a strong paralytic agent. Once her whole body felt warm, that warmth quickly give way to a cold numbness. A look of confusion and horror came across her face.
“W-what did… you.. do…?” she slowly gasped out
Rainbow Dash tried to continue her fighting when she found her body just wouldn’t respond to any movements she tried to make. As the seconds ticked by her body began to feel like she had been applebucking for a week straight. Soon she could barely move and her body felt heavy. Too heavy; She became limp. It became increasingly difficult for the wasps to hold up the limp breezie, so they gently set Rainbow Dash down on the forest floor on her belly. The three hovered up and watched the breezie intently as she twitched.
Once they were sure the breezy could no longer fight back, the three wasps descended on the incapacitated Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash felt a sense of dread come over her when she felt multiple legs brushing all over her body as the wasps got into position. With her vision obscured and unable to move her head, she was caught off guard when she felt something prodding against her tailhole. Rainbow Dash attempted to vocalize her disapproval and surprise, but she was only able to utter a croaked moan.
The prodding at her hole changed to a pressure on it. Slowly her sphincter stretched and widened as the ovipositor was shoved inside. Though paralyzed, Rainbow Dash could feel each ridge on the hollow tube as it slid inside. Overall the thing felt rather slimy. While inch after inch of the tube slid into her tailhole, a second of the three wasps landed next to Rainbow Dash. Still unable to see what was going on, she let out another croaked moan when she felt a similar tube pressed to her vaginal lips. There wasn’t as much pressure needed to slip into the looser hole. Soon both wasps were fully hilted inside their respective holes.
A flurry of wings followed as the two wasps began to push. Rainbow Dash groaned at the feeling of the first two small eggs slipping past her anus and vaginal lips. The slight bump caused a gentle pressure on each hole, enhancing the feeling. She was still scared from the whole situation; she wasn’t exactly sure what they were doing. She couldn’t see what was going on.
“What are they doing to me? Why… can’t I move?”
All she was aware of at this point was her belly was swelling out slowly, due to whatever was getting pumped inside of her.
The numbness moved up from her body, now taking ahold of her head. The muscles in her face and jaw grew slack as the toxin took effect there. Within seconds she found her mouth hanging open and drool dripping out either side. Rainbow made one single attempt to try and close her mouth but, just like her body, it refused to respond to her. She was fully unable to fight back and was at the mercy of the three wasps. There was no resistance from the mare when a third ovipositor pressed to her lips. There was a bit of awkward pushing and prodding, but eventually the clear tube slid right into the warm mouth. It still felt slimy and the taste was not too pleasant. She could feel an odd tingling on her tongue and her throat as the thing slid inside of her. Whatever the slimy stuff was on the tube, it made her throat relax and ease the entry.
“Eww eww eww! This feels so disgusting! If I could move I’d show you what I’m made of! And another thing… I can’t breathe!”
The appendage was unable to fully enter the mouth due to the way Rainbow Dash was positioned, but it reached far enough to block her breathing. Now she was able to see exactly what the other wasps had shoved into her. She watched as a small white, oblong shaped thing enter into the tube and travel slowly downward, before disappearing past her lips.
“E-Eggs…? Those are eggs they’re shoving in me? Gah! Need to breathe! Let me up, please!” she pleaded in her mind, knowing full well the wasps would neither hear her nor do what she wanted. She tried to take her mind off the ordeal by starting to count the eggs as they pushed inside of her. She counted more than a dozen before her eyes began to flutter and her vision started to go dark. “Somepony… help me…” That was her last thought before she passed out.
Rainbow Dash awoke some time later when she felt two things happening. First, she found she was able to breathe again and secondly, the clear ovipositors getting pulled from her used holes. All three were slickened with her juices or saliva. Rainbow Dash found her hooves couldn’t touch the ground due to her gravid egg laden belly. Once the wasps had pulled free of her holes, two of the wasps took off while their reproductive organs slipped back inside their protective covering. The largest of the three, however, waited for its’ ovipositor to retract completely. While it settled back into place, he flipped the breezie over on her back and showed off his sharp looking stinger. Rainbow Dash watched in horror as it climbed up onto the rounded belly and positioned itself. Her vision became blocked by black and yellow colors; it was all Rainbow could see. The wasp hunched up and aimed this stinger right at Rainbow’s distended belly. She took a single breath before the sharp sting shot pain into her belly. She could feel the toxic liquid as it rushed through her veins which caused her to twitch again. Satisfied his prey was pumped full with enough of the paralyzing toxins that she couldn’t flee, the final wasp took off. Rainbow Dash could only stare up at the sky and breathe softly as she lay on the ground, watching the wasp leave her lying on the ground of the forest. Exhausted and numb, she passed out again.
Time passed before Rainbow Dash regained consciousness. The sun was high in the sky by this time. Had it been a typical day, Rainbow Dash would have been chilling on a cloud, doing the exact thing she was doing now. Just laying down and being lazy. But she wasn’t used to being prevented from moving at all! She couldn’t even blink or close her eyes and, due to her positioning, was forced to stare up at the sky. Unable to move, she just stared up at the sky and watched the sun and passing clouds. From time to time a random bird would fly overhead, but with her small size she was quite easy to miss. At one point she heard the sound of hooves running close by. The hoofsteps seemed to get closer to her. Rainbow hoped that whatever pony was out in the woods would find her. Unfortunately, the sounds of the hoofsteps faded quickly. Whoever was there had passed by the breezie without noticing her. There was nothing for the mare to do but just lie there, her breath shallow and slow. Eventually, the boredom of just staring at a single point in the sky got the better of her and she drifted off to sleep.
When she awoke again, Rainbow Dash found the sky dark, the moon round and full, and the stars twinkling brightly. Moonbeams filtered down to the forest floor through the trees, casting odd shaped shadows. Despite it being dark, she had no idea how much time had passed.
How long have I been sleeping? What time is it? What day?
Rainbow Dash was worried for her safety. Trying to keep her calm, she had a comforting thought. “The mission was only supposed to take a few days, so if I don’t show up back in Ponyville by then, my friends will obviously come to find me.” As soon as she had that thought, though, doubts began to creep into her mind. How long would she be out in the woods? When would her friends even notice she was missing? Would her friends even NOTICE she was missing? And if they did, would her friends find her first or would one of the woodland creatures get ahold of her? What would they do to her?
“I shouldn’t worry… I’ll definitely be found.”
There was a brief pause.
“Nopony is going to find me! I’m DOOMED!”
Her mind began whirling a mile a minute. She couldn’t figure out a way out of her situation, especially when her thoughts kept bouncing back and forth between ‘Everything will be ok’ and ‘I’m never going to be found.’ With her mind racing, Rainbow Dash was unable to fall back asleep. She ended up staying awake the rest of the night, grateful that no wild animals had found her.
The sun rose, the birds began to chirp, and the woodland creatures began to scurry about to start a new day. And there, on the forest floor was Rainbow Dash and she was still on her back. She stared upwards at the sky as clouds passed by above her.
“I should be up there clearing the sky today… When will I get to move again, this is so uncool…”
She could feel the eggs shift about inside of her when Celestia’s sun shined on her distended belly and warmed them up. Despite her predicament, Rainbow Dash was enjoying the warmth from the sun. She was just about to drift off to take a nap in the nice warm sun to take her mind off her situation when she heard a loud rumbling and oddly rhythmic thump.
“Huh…? What’s that sound?” She listened harder. The thumping sounded almost like… hoofsteps! Which meant that a pony was nearby and maybe, just maybe, her saviour. She tried to call out but with her whole body still numbed from the wasp stings, all she could manage was a weak groaning sound. The loud steps came to a halt. “No… Don’t walk off and leave me again!”
The sound Rainbow Dash made must have worked, though. The sound started again, with each step thudding louder and louder. Suddenly, the sky darkened some when a large, pony shaped shadow fell over her. From what she could see, the leg just next to her had a yellow color to it. She was able to see more when the pony loomed over her small, frail body. It was Fluttershy!
"Hello?" came the soft, gentle voice of Fluttershy. "Is something-" Her words and hoofsteps stopped abruptly when she glanced down on the ground. There below her was a breezie laying on its’ back. She bent down to get a closer look at it. The colors and markings on her reminded Fluttershy of a certain pegasus.
“Oh! A little Breezie! You sort of look like Rainbow Dash,” she giggled out. She leaned down a little closer to get an even closer look. The biggest thing she noticed was the distended belly of the breezie.
“Oh…” Fluttershy muttered out softly before she scooped up the breezie carefully. “I didn’t realize you weren’t a breezie,” she stated as she gently placed the little breezie into her mane.
If it would have been possible, Rainbow Dash would have jumped with joy and done loops in the air.
“Of course! Fluttershy just has to notice something off with me and I wasn’t really a breezie! Which means she’ll take me back to Twilight and everything will get fixed and-”
Rainbow’s thoughts cut off when she heard the words Fluttershy spoke next; her tone was flat and uncaring. “You’re just a little egg nest, aren’t you? Don’t worry, little nest, I’ll take good care of you.” In Fluttershy’s eyes, the Breezie was no longer a living being. But that didn’t mean she didn’t care about the new life growing inside of the breezie. “I have a nice, warm, safe glass aquarium I can keep you in until the eggs hatch. Oh look, at how your tummy is squirming around! It might be just a day or two before they hatch!”
A short walk later had both the breezie and pegasus back at Fluttershy's cottage.
“That… was quick. I must not have been as far in the Everfree as I thought,” thought Rainbow Dash when she was gently laid down on the counter. Suddenly her view was a vision of white. It was a bunny! And the expression on his face, it had to be-
“Angel Bunny! You leave that egg nest alone! I have to clean out a safe place to put it. Go outside and play with the other bunnies, and I’ll feed you later!” Fluttershy watched as the bunny hopped off the counter and dash out of the rabbit door. “I’m sorry little nest, Angel can get jealous when I’m showing attention to an animal besides himself. Now, don’t go running off anywhere.”
Fluttershy turned back to the empty glass aquarium and tilted it slightly to the side. Carefully she scrubbed out the dust and growing moss from inside a glass aquarium that had been housing a previously sick iguana.
“I know it’s not like out in the forest, but this will keep you warmer and safer.”
Once the aquarium was sufficiently clean Fluttershy carefully placed the egged breezie inside. She then placed a lid with a heat lamp in it to keep the egg nest warm and keep her other critters out. Fluttershy switched on the heat lamp, the bulb lighting up with a soft hum.
Dash tried to squint or shield her eyes somehow as soon as the bright heat lamp turned on. Still unable to move, though, she was staring up at the bright light. It hurt her eyes. Rainbow Dash tried to will herself to move when she felt her internal temperature rising. Within seconds of the heat striking her body, her fur and mane began to produce a lot of sweat. If things didn’t change, she’d either pass out from heat exhaustion or get cooked alive. There was a brief reprieve when a few drops of water dripped onto her body. All she could see hovering above her body looked like some kind of dropper filled with water.
"I'm sorry it's so warm," came Fluttershy's soft voice. "But eggs need the heat to hatch. I'll make sure you don’t get too hot though. I have some errands to run, but I’ll be back later to check on you."
How much later was really unknown to Rainbow Dash. Time had no meaning for her when she couldn't move. And there was no clock in her line of sight. At first, Rainbow Dash tried counting seconds to pass the time but unlike a clock she counted them way too fast. The only constant in her limited world was Fluttershy, who would stop by, drip some cool water on her sweating body, then leave without so much as saying anything.
More time passed, the shadows in the house elongated, and from inside the glass aquarium Rainbow Dash could see that the sky had gone dark. “Must be night again… It’s been what? Two days? Three days? Somepony should be looking for me soon and Twilight would be able to use her magic stuff to see I wasn’t a breezie.” Her thoughts bored her, though, and she fell asleep again.
Rainbow Dash awoke suddenly when the brighter lights of Fluttershy’s cottage cut on. Had she been able to move, Rainbow would have jumped in surprise. Just on the other side of the glass wall was Fluttershy's giant face peering in at her. All she managed was a low groan of surprise at the sight.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I startle you? I've been checking you every hour tonight because it's close to the hatching."
Rainbow Dash couldn’t see the moving but she could definitely feel them. Fluttershy realized that the Breezie was unable to move her head to look at herself so she removed the top of the aquarium and held a mirror so the paralyzed breezie could see.
“Look, you can already see them moving around.”
Her distended belly showed odd lumps shifting around and, forced to stare at her own reflection, she watched as one lump became deformed. Followed by another. And another. Slowly the shifting lumps turned into a writhing mass as Rainbow Dash watched in horror. Fluttershy, on the other hoof, watched in rapt fascination.
"Oh how wonderful! The eggs have hatched! Soon everything will be all over!"
Rainbow Dash took those words to mean her ordeal would be over soon, the transformation spell on her wear off, and things would be back to normal. A stinging sensation from her belly broke her thoughts and, from the pain, she moaned weakly. At first, she thought she had imagined that sting. There was a slight pause before there was another brief, sharp spike of pain. It felt almost like biting.
"Now you be good little larvae and eat your first meal so you can grow up big and strong!"
“Eat? Meal? Fluttershy you can't... you have to save me!”
At first it felt like the biggest concentration of the larva was within her belly with the amount of pain coming from there. The pain quickly faded, though, as the larvae made quick work of her uterus, lower intestines, and stomach. Rainbow Dash watched as the massive single writhing lump turned into four or five as the larva tunneled through their first meal, eating up muscle and vital organs as they went.
Second after agonizing second passed while her belly, which had been rounded out from the eggs and larvae, slowly caved inward. Her back legs and plot looked sunken as well. She only really began to realize she was in big trouble and was not going to be saved when the feeling of the bites and writhing lumps of larvae made their way into her chest and neck area.
She felt the nibbles as the young wasps began to bite at her lungs. With holes torn inside of them, Rainbow began to have trouble breathing. That, along with her finally panicking, caused her little chest to heave. A few of the lumps continued up along her neck, eating her muscles as they made their way into her head. It was about at that point a few of the white bugs finally chewed their way through Rainbow’s outer flesh, wiggling about as they emerged. The holes they had formed quickly grew larger as the bugs poured out.
The groups still inside of Rainbow Dash found little to eat and soon joined the mass of larvae streaming out of the open wounds. At this point, the paralytic venom had finally worn off, but with how much of her muscles had been eaten, she still wasn’t able to move her limbs. The only things she could move were her wings, though only slightly, her mouth, and her eyelids.
“F-flu…” she moaned out, finally able to speak again. The damage to her lungs, though, was too great. Rainbow’s words were barely above a whisper. Fluttershy perked an ear when she thought she heard some kind of sound and leaned a bit closer to the little breezie to listen.
“Are you… trying to say something little breezie?” she asked, waiting for her response.
That response never came, though. As soon as Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to try and speak again, one of the wasp larvae crawled inside and began chewing on her tongue. Rainbow Dash felt a new pain of a headache as it spread from the front of her head to the back. She squeezed her eyelids shut only briefly before they snapped open. Her pupils became pinpricks and the silence in the room was broken. The breezie let out a muffled and terrified scream, two or three of the bumps made by the larvae in her head slowly disappearing.
“Oh dear… they’ve gotten to your brain… I’m sorry little breezie but you’re just food now to make others big and strong.”
She glanced back and forth in horror, her vision not focusing on a single point. Suddenly there was the sound of two pops then silence. Her little breezie wings flapped about uselessly as she finally decided to fight back. Rainbow could feel something nibbling away in her skull and an odd itch coming from her eyes. She blinked once. Twice. Thrice. All in an attempt to get the itch out. Then, half her vision was dark.
Unluckily for her, the mirror was still there for her to see her mangled, nearly eaten body. When the itching started, she focused her eyes onto the mirror held above her. She watched in horror as one of her eyes sunk in slowly, followed by an odd white lump wriggling its’ way out of a half eaten eyeball. Still she screamed until her lungs finally collapsed from the damage. Her other eye quickly sunk in as well before another larva emerged and blinded her completely. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear, she couldn’t talk. It was only a matter of time for her to be finished off as part of the new life’s first meal.
A few days passed after the wasp eggs had hatched. What little was left of Rainbow Dash, her hooves, nose, ears and mane, her nearly empty wings, antennae, and bones, sat in the bottom of the aquarium, almost forgotten about by now. On the third day after the eggs had hatched, Fluttershy had moved the larvae to a larger, more habitable, and safer enclosure for them to continue to grow up big and strong. She had left what was left of the breezie in the other aquarium and planned on cleaning the tank out later.
It was only a couple more days before Fluttershy took the tank outside; She hummed a small cleaning song to herself while she worked.With her were a couple of pet parasprites she secretly befriended and kept after they were forced back into the Everfree. In exchange for helping her keep her house clean they were able to feed and reproduce. She started to scrub out the tank and reached for the breezie remains when she heard hoofsteps approaching her. She looked up and eeped loudly, cutting her humming short. It was Twilight.
“Oh! Twilight! I was um… er…” She gave a sheepish grin. “I know you weren’t expecting me here, but my animal emergency was easier to deal with than I had thought,” she explained. “How did the mission with Rainbow Dash go?”
“That’s why I’m here, Fluttershy. We lost contact with Rainbow Dash a few days ago, and I was tracking my magic to find out what happened. I followed the trail to the Everfree Forest and then… the trail just stopped. I theorize that she transformed back before…”
Fluttershy had stopped listening. She didn’t much care for Twilight’s long winded explanations, though she was way too shy to ever tell her that. She half-listened while she returned to cleaning the aquarium. She picked up the breezie remains carefully and smiled. One life gone, but so many more nurtured by the sacrifice and-
“-And I should have known the breezie spell wouldn’t have lasted long enough-”
“Oh, how curious,” interrupted Fluttershy. “I came across a breezie just a few days ago. It was full of wasp eggs.” She held the remains of the breezie up and let it dangle in front of her parasprite pet. “Time for some cleanup, little parasprite.”
Some of what was left immediately alerted Twilight to a possibility, her horn lighting softly. When she detected a very faint hint of magic, her own magic, she gasped and took a step forward. “Fluttershy! Wait! Don’t-” But it was too late. The parasprite engulfed the breezie in one bite and swallowed, spitting out a new blue colored parasprite with rainbow colored wings.
“What was that, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked with a sincere smile. “Don’t what?” There was no way Twilight could tell her the truth now and sighed, shaking her head. “N-Nothing, just keep an eye out for Rainbow Dash in case she comes this way, alright?”
Fluttershy gave a nod and happily continued to scrub out the aquarium. “Sure, Twilight. I sure hope she’s ok. I never got a chance to say goodbye to her.”
Twilight left and sighed as she walked away from Fluttershy’s cottage. Spike was waiting for her and, when she approached, he saw the look on her face. She was very nearly in tears. “Twilight…? What’s-” His words were cut off when Twilight held up a hoof.
“Just take a note to Celestia, and never let Fluttershy see the contents, ever. It would break her heart.”