Three claps of thunder boomed through the darkness. The world shook, and the very air itself vibrated, causing physical pain to those who heard it. Lesser ponies would have been rendered deaf. Somepony was knocking on Rainbow Dash’s door, and she had a hangover.

With a croak, immediately followed by a series of coughs, the covers shifted, and Rainbow slid off her cloud-bed, flopping onto the floor. Even on the clouds, she felt like her bones were made of glass. Standing was a test of endurance, walking was a marathon, and whoever was at her door would not stop fucking knocking.

Well, more pounding, at this point.

She stumbled towards the door of her bedroom, only to stagger at the last second, tripping over her sleeping tortoise, and fall through a cloud-brick wall into her hallway, putting another hole in what had once been an ornate cloud-house. She’d built it all herself, using nearly every cloud in the valley, compressing it into brick and floor and ceiling, and made a cloud-house that could, just, perhaps, hold her own ego.

Last week had been fun, she reflected, before tripping down the stairs and into a ball of nausea.

Last night had been fun too. Lots of drinking. She’d yet again challenged Applejack, and Applejack had once again soundly proven that Rainbow was a lightweight. She didn’t mind in the slightest, though. She just loved the challenge. Especially against Applejack.

And she needed the fun, after they’d found Fluttershy like they had.

She opened her eyes, and closed them again when the world was still spinning. Why was she here, come to think of it? She was honestly surprised she hadn’t woken up in AJ’s bedroom, or the barn, or the roof, or the CMC’s clubhouse. That was how this usually went.

Her eyes opened again. The clouds were diffusing the sunlight nicely, but any light was too bright. And the pounding was accompanied by an annoying whine, like an insect in her ear. She jabbed at the side of her head while yawning, trying to get it to pop. When it did, the sound finally came through right. The sound of shouting.

“Tertiary Rainbow Dash! Open the damn door!”

In moments, she was scrabbling at the cloud floor towards the double-doors of her cloud-house, pushing herself upwards, grabbing the knob, and pulling down. Unbearable glare burst in like a firebomb, blinding her, and yet a silhouette stood in her doorway. Sixty pounds of angry, middle-aged pegasus shielded her in shadow.

“Finally. Rainbow, you need to show up for your job for it to stay your damn job.”

“Mpfhfgfh…” She gurgled, struggling to three hooves, and using the fourth to cover her eyes. “Sorry, Primary Cloud Cover… Lemme get some coffee, be right there, just a little late today…”

The silhouette was silent. “Dash. What time is it? By your reckoning alone.”

She smacked her lips. “...Like… tennish, ten-thirty-ish…”

“It’s quarter-to-four.”

Dash’s ears flattened. “...Shit.”

“Shit is right, Tertiary,” He moved forward, shutting the door behind him. Blissful darkness fell over Dash, and she finally took her hoof away from her eyes to blink, blearily, at the gray-orange stallion glaring at her in her own foyer. “Because that’s what your performance has been for a long fucking time now. What in Tartarus is going on? Is this about your Fluttershy friend? You know you should get some time off for a grievance period...”

“No. I’m… I’m fine, I don’t need… Drinking.” She groaned, staggering towards her kitchen.

He followed her, watching as she grabbed a vapour-sensitive glass off her cloud-brick counter, put it to the faucet, and poured some water from the rain-tank. “Habitually?”

“Not an alcoholic,” she whined, sipping at the water.

“Your record suggests otherwise. You know who had to cover your shift this morning, Dash?”

“Ditzy Doo.” She guessed, sipping again.

“No, but almost as bad; Flitter.”

Dash spit out a mouthful of water. “Flitter? That filly can barely move a Cirrostratus!”

He glared at her. “Yes, as we all got to see first-hand today, because you didn’t show up to work.”

Rainbow sighed, downing the rest of the glass, and dropping it into the sink with a crack. “Look. Either you’re going to fire me, or not, so just get it fucking over with. Spare me the sunburned lecture.”

He wasn’t even fazed. “I’m not firing you. I’m just switching you to the afternoon shift, with Secondary Thunderlane.” He sighed in disappointment, before turning and beginning to trudge out of her house. “Shift starts at 5:30. Try not to be late for that, Tertiary.”

* * *

She’d downed enough coffee to make Tank jittery, and yet, Dash still felt half-asleep. Lethargically, she flapped across town to the weather station, landing on the pad alongside Thunderlane, who was already wearing his vest. He jumped as she landed beside him, fluttering her wings to try and get some cold air under them. “Oh! Hey Rainbow! Don’t see much of you, since… uh… How have you been?”

“Fantastic,” She growled, ducking into the locker room, and pulling out her own vest and timecard. “Just ask Cloud Cover.”

“I did, when he swapped you and Blossomforth.” He paused, before adding, “You know, Cheerilee runs the local AA chapter-”

“Not. An. Alcoholic.”

He jumped back as she hissed at him. “Okay, okay. Just throwing it out there.”

Rainbow sighed as she finished shrugging on her brown vest, dusting off the hazard stripes. “Sorry. It’s appreciated, I guess. Just not in the fucking mood.” She glanced up at the sky over Ponyville, which was scattered with Altocumulus. “What’s on the schedule?”

“Same as usual,” he shrugged. “Clear it, dump ‘em over the Everfree. They’ll rain themselves dry in a week or so.”

“Race ya?” Rainbow offered, eyes lighting up. The caffeine finally seemed to be kicking in.

“No, Dash. Every time you do that, I get half pay, because you do all the work.”

Her hooves tapped impatiently at the edge of the landing pad. “Alright, how about a race after we’re done, then? From one end of town to the other.”

Thunderlane shook his head. “You always beat me, Dash. You always beat me. So you’re just asking if I could tucker myself out pointlessly, which I don’t wanna do. I’ve got a date tonight.”

The mare sighed, and together, they hopped into the air to start collecting the clouds together.

* * *

It was when they were about halfway through the job that Dash noticed the darker clouds coming from over the Eastern mountains. She signalled Thunderlane over, and pointed at them. “Are those runoff stormclouds from Trottingham?”

“That looks more like industrial smog than anything else. Maybe Fillydelphia?”

Dash shook her head. “Too north for that.” After a moment, she shrugged. “You stay here, keep working. I’ll go check it out.”

He gave her a look. “Are you sure? I mean, if it’s nothing… Primary Cloud Cover is already pretty pissed at you…”

“That cloud could be a lot of things, but ‘nothing’ isn’t one of them. We spotted it, what, five minutes ago? And it’s already looking to be worse than what we were doing before.” Thunderlane didn’t seem convinced. “Look, I can handle myself, and you’re staying on task. If it’s nothing, I get in trouble. Not your problem. If it’s trouble, than I told you to keep working here while I take care of it. You’re clear either way.”

Thunderlane chewed his lip. “I’m a secondary, though… I’m supposed to be in charge.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Alright, so tell him I went off on my own and you couldn’t stop me.” There was a gust of wind, and then she was gone, leaving Thunderlane to wonder whether that was true or not.

* * *

The whole time she was approaching the mountains, Dash’s mind was spent trying to identify the patterns. Too flat and low for Cumulonimbus, too spread out for Cumulus, too low for Altostratus but too thick for plain Stratus… When she within two miles, she spotted the source; a cave in the side of a suspiciously-similar looking mountain.

“...Oh. Oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me.”

This was definitely Lone Mountain. It had that same long windy trail up the side, that unusual split halfway up, and that same trail of smoke pouring out of the cave. She paused before getting closer… Because that was definitely Dragonsmoke.

She rolled her head around a bit as her wings kept her bobbing in midair, mentally debating getting Applejack and the rest, and going through all of that crap again… before eventually deciding against it. They’d warned this Dragon already. Maybe it thought they were dumb, or they’d already died—Grown Dragons had funny ideas about pony lifespans, after all.

Alighting on the stone outcropping in front of the cave, she waved away a cloud of the smoke. Still acrid, still sulfuric. That cinched it: Dragonsmoke. Pushing her way forward through it, she trotted into the cave.

After the already-sizable entrance, the cave widened out even further. When they’d been “helping” this dumb son a bitch move out the first time, Applejack had remarked about how you could fit the Town Hall—and a sizable chunk of the town—inside the cave. She could finally hear the Dragon’s snoring, reverberating around like a big echo chamber.

There was a faint crunch under her hooves, and Dash froze, but after the snoring continued unabated, she looked down. She’d stepped on what seemed to be the remains of a Mountain Lion. It hadn’t appeared to be eaten, or stomped flat, just that it seemed to have dropped dead where it stood. Odd.

As she continued onward, she kept waving away the smoke, but even more replaced it. Eventually, she got close enough the the Dragon that the smoke was being blown outward before dispersing. The smell and the smoke still made her eyes water, but, she could take a few solid breaths now.

The Dragon was shrouded in smoke and shadow, but Dash had no doubt in her mind it was the same dumb Dragon. She stepped around a pile of faintly-glinting gemstones, and…

Hadn’t this guy hoarded Gold before?

That was something Twilight had dug up while researching Spike; that Dragons tended to pick something to hoard once they matured fully, and stick to it. Changing that was pretty life-changing, for a Dragon.

Now with a fair bit of doubt in her mind, Rainbow Dash kept moving forward, closer and closer to the big guy. When she got within twenty feet, she finally confirmed it was a different Dragon. This shmuck was yellow, and a little smaller.

Smaller was good; different Dragon, not so much.

He (or she, damned if she knew) would not have gotten Fluttershy’s little lesson on Equestrian territory. The smart thing, Dash realized, would have been to go for help. Get Flutter- get Twilight, and the rest of the girls, get the Royal Guards, anything, now that she had confirmed the problem.

Then the Dragon yawned, stretching its wing in its sleep, and Dash could only follow that wing. Smaller meant faster. And when the other dumbass had made his last trip, he had been moving pretty damn fast, but Rainbow knew she was faster than he had been. This one looked like it could give her a run for her money.

So, Rainbow decided, either she was going to single-hoofedly get rid of a Dragon...

...Or she was gonna have a real race.

And that was her (admittedly stupid) reason for walking up and jabbing it right in the snout. “Hey! Jackass! Wake up, or I’m gonna stake ya down!”

Twin blue eyes snapped open, and a distinctly female voice rumbled through the cave. “Pony. You are either dumb or foolhardy to wake a slumbering Dragon.”

“Neither,” Dash said, putting on an ‘official’ tone of voice. “You’re ‘slumbering’ on Equestrian territory, and your smoke’s fucking up our weather. Buzz off.”

The eyes narrowed. “I go where I please, sleep where I please. I shall not have ants impose their will upon me.”

“Well, you’re in our anthill, pal. So get lost before the soldier ants show up.”

There was a loud ‘whuff’ like a very brief windstorm had raged through, and the rest of the smoke in the cavern was pushed out with a breath from the Dragon. Though, for a moment, Rainbow was almost sure she’d been incinerated. Patting herself down, she found she was blackened from the smoke, but unharmed. In front of her, the Dragon settled back down, nestling back into her pile of gems. “Send the Unconquerable Caelesti. I will hear her petty quibbles.”

Rainbow stomped her hoof. “Pal, I’m working on behalf of Princess Celestia right now! And she’s telling you, through me, to piss off!”

“Then her words mean nothing.” The Dragon closed her eyes, seemingly returning to sleep, and black whisps of smoke started curling out of her nostrils once more.

Rainbow wasn’t sure what pissed her off more: this dumb lizard dissing the Princess, the dumb lizard thinking it was hot shit, or the fact that the dumb lizard didn’t even slightly respect Rainbow Dash. If she’d been able to see anything more than a nice, big, sucker-punchable Dragon, she probably would’ve settled on the latter.

But Rainbow Dash saw a chin. A mouth that was just begging to be given a fat lip. She reared up on her hinds, smacked her right hoof into her left a few times to warm it up, and then socked the Dragon right in the chin as hard as she could.

It nearly broke her hoof.

Still, it got the big bitch’s attention, and she jumped, clearly not quite sure what to make of the brown-vested Pegasus hopping around clutching her forehoof. She finally smirked. “You speak for the Unconquerable Caelesti? Then impress upon me her skill in this matter.” It leaned in close, and Rainbow could see that the Dragon’s head was about as big as her entire body. “Fly away, little insect. Fly as far and as fast as you can. I’ll give you a head start.”

“How big a head start?” Rainbow asked, gingerly setting her hoof on the stone floor.

“Twenty seconds,” replied the Dragon. “Starting from ten seconds ago.”

A big, stupid grin spread across Rainbow’s muzzle in an instant, and she was galloping out of the cave like a Batpony out of Tartarus. In moments, she was already half a mile away from the cave, and still gaining speed. Dash counted down as she looked behind her. “Five… Four… Three… Two… One…”

Nothing happened. For a moment, Dash thought the Dragon just wanted to be rid of her, and had simply gone back to sleep.

Then the cave entrance exploded in a cloud of ash and stone and fire, and the Dragon was already moving faster than she was.

“Oh buck yes.” Squeed Rainbow, locking her eyes forward and flattening her wings for maximum speed.

Ponyville blurred beneath her. She couldn’t even make out individual buildings, let alone ponies, but she imagined she must have been making a sight, moving this fast with a Dragon on her ass. There were probably crowds watching. She spun, giving a lazy wave, and caught sight of the Dragon. In seconds, it had crossed half the distance to her.

Dash’s eyes widened and adrenaline shot through her. A race! A real race! This was fucking awesome! She was fucking awesome!

Then Ponyville was gone, Tartarus, she had already left the valley, blasting past Ghastly Gorge and out over the Equestrian plains. A glance behind her showed that yes, it was still on her, still angry, and Dash eagerly kicked up the speed. Her mane was blurring behind her, she was leaving a solid rainbow contrail behind her… If she wasn’t fighting gravity, if she’d been going down, she could’ve pulled off a Sonic Rainbow, she was going so fast!

Then there was a roar behind her, something that should have been impossible. She knew they were going faster than the speed of sound, and still she could hear the Dragon roar, or was it just the blood thundering in her ears? This was the best damned race she’d ever had-

She felt teeth snap at her tail as she was passing over the Moojave Desert—she’d crossed half the country, and this Dragon was still right behind her, still gaining! The thought crossed her mind that she might, just maybe, be in trouble.

There was another snap, and teeth closed around her.

Rainbow Dash’s first instinct was to freeze. Wings splayed, hooves outstretched, and her hinds slowly sliding down a very wet, very tight tunnel. In fact, that would have been the first word she’d have used to describe her situation; “Wet.”

Various parts of her brain, of her inner ear, all came together to tell her that she was losing altitude and speed, fast. Only moving her eyes, she looked around, trying to figure out why she was wet. Her adrenaline drained as she saw the teeth pinning her hooves in place, the wet tongue sliding beneath her belly, caressing her barrel, all barely lit by the sun filtering through the lips and cheeks of...

She was in the Dragon’s mouth. And her hinds were already sliding down its throat, slowly being followed by the rest of her.

She began frantically kicking, though the lack of adrenaline made her muscles burn. She had just managed to pull her hooves out from past the esophagus when she felt a world-shattering thump rattle her around the mouth. For a moment she was terrified her pinned forelegs had been bitten off by the impact, but thankfully, she could still feel them. A moment later, she was nearly blinded by the light of the sun, and she was falling.

She ended up on her back this time. Staring up into the deep blue sky above, the sun only helped so much against the previously-warm saliva coating her body. What was worse, the utter deluge that she’d been subject to had soaked her wings.

She, Rainbow Dash, was grounded. The upside-down Dragon glaring at her didn’t help matters.

“You impress me slightly, Pegasus. But I still caught you.”

Rainbow’s eyes narrowed, and she tried to struggle to her hooves, only for a deadly sharp talon-tipped claw to come down on her chest, pressing her back against the hard-packed desert dirt. “Lemme up, You big cheater!”

“Cheater?” The Dragon raised a scaly yellow eyebrow. “I have cheated in the great hunt? The eternal ying-yang of predator and prey?”

Rainbow blinked. “What? No! In our friggin’ race! There’s no way you could have beaten me legit!”

There was a ground-shaking thump as the Dragon lay down next to her, claw still pressing her belly to the ground. “Race? Explain.”

“We were racing!” Squeaked Dash, as the claw pressed down slightly. “I’m the fastest pegasus in Equestria, there’s no way you could have beat-”

“Then that must mean I am the fastest creature in ‘Equestria’, little Pegasus. And you, I think, shall be my prize.”

Rainbow’s eye’s got very wide, very quickly. “Wha- No! You can’t! Celestia will-”

“The Unconquerable Caelesti can do naught.” She interrupted. “Mayhaps she will send her Dragon-hunters after me, but a thousand creatures are very, very slow, while a single creature is incredibly fast. You are living proof of this.” The big lizard smirked at her. “You shall get your wish, little Pegasus. I shall leave your ‘Equestria’. But you shall not live to see that day.”

“Please, don’t do this…” Whined Rainbow Dash, but the Dragon’s neck was already twisting, snake-like, back around to her hinds. The claw shifted down below her belly, and she found her rear and legs pressed against hard-packed dirt as the Dragon sucked them into her pony-sized maw.

Rainbow kept thrashing around, trying to escape, even as the claw moved back up her barrel, followed by the scaly lips, slowly sucking her in… Enjoying her flavour.

As soon as the Dragon’s snout got back into reach, she brought her hooves down on it, hammering across the terrifyingly-solid surface until she couldn’t feel them. And all it did was make the stupid Dragon chuckle!

She let out a sudden squeak as a long, forked tongue suddenly rammed itself into her crotch, slathering her slit with what couldn’t have been affection. Surely the Dragon wasn’t getting off on-

The moment she let her forelegs go limp from exhaustion and confusion, she knew what she’d done wrong. But in that moment, it was too late—there was a horrible, overbearing feeling of suction, and then the darkness of the dragon’s mouth enveloped her. It filled with saliva, and she thought she was going to drown, but then the tongue lifted her up and against the roof of the dragon’s mouth.

It rubbed between her legs, across and into her slit, jammed it’s way into her ass. It was trying to taste her. Enjoy her flavour. Then when she’d screamed herself hoarse from the abuse, it moved across her face, the tongue exploring the Pegasus that barely fit in the mouth.

Then the tongue shifted, dragging her towards the back of the throat with a slosh of saliva from all around her. She started thrashing around in the Dragon’s throat, desperately trying to choke it, make it vomit, anything, but she was squeezed tight by the muscles of its throat, sliding down and back. It was like riding a wet, fleshy slide, but one that seemed to be trying to crush the very life out of her the whole way down.

For a single split second, she found herself wondering if this was what Fluttershy felt like when that Snake attacked her.

And then she was out, slipping out of a hole in the side of the stomach and landing with a splash in the dark. There was no light. She couldn’t see, and in here, the smell of sulfur was overpowering.

A moment later, she realized there was barely any oxygen in here. Just barely enough to breathe, and every gulp of air was absolutely saturated with sulfur. She tried to flail, tried to escape, but an almost complete lack of air nearly rendered her unconscious. Nearly.

She began limply sliding into the acid, halfway aware of what was going on. As she did, it began burning at her fur, and she was suddenly very awake. It dissolved her crotch first, invading her body and starting to eat away at it from inside out, to the sound of her horrified screams. She almost looked like she’d been pulled apart by her hind hooves, splitting at the seams, acid flooding her soft organs, while her more resilient legs and bones held out for slightly longer against the acid.

Her Weatherpony vest slid off into the acid, even as her melting hooves flailed, trying to save something, anything. A faint red gem glowed faintly as it resisted the burn of the acid, settling into the soup of meat and blood and acid at the very bottom.

Then the acids began rising up through her chest cavity, dissolving all of her most vital organs. The internal pressure as acids entered her throat also pushed them upwards, and they flushed out her mouth with a horrified gurgle. Then her legs were gone, and she found herself unable to stop herself from sliding into the acids, slapping at the burning surface with the nubs of her legs. The rainbow strands of her mane started falling out and all mixing together in a mishmash of strands of colour. Her eyes finally rolled back into her skull as death took her, only moments before the acid dissolved them. What was left slopped out, replaced by more acid that ate through the optic nerve, dissolving her tortured brain.

Rainbow Dash’s corpse slid under the surface of the now-cloudy pool of acid, and the only thing that could be seen, if there were any light, would be the most solid and resistant bones bobbing to the surface, and a random mix of strands of mane.

* * *

“Stupid stick…” Muttered Cloud Cover. It started to beep in another new direction, and he gave it a smack with his hoof.

“Whoah, now. You keep that stick in one piece, Mister Cover. Reckon Twilight wants it jes’ like it was.” Applejack gave him a glare, and faithfully started in the new direction the stick pointed.

It’d been leading them all over the damn Everfree, and Cloud Cover strongly suspected the weirdness of the forest, both magical and natural, was severely screwing with the tracking spell laid into the wood. But they’d only noticeably crossed over their own path about three times, and AJ was perfectly content to let it lead them, since she seemed to be pretty concerned about Rainbow.

On the plus side, the actual fauna of the Everfree seemed to have calmed down a tad in recent weeks. Monster attacks had been infrequent, and several that seemed as if they were powder kegs had just ended, with the animals turning back into the forest. So Cloud had a little bit more patience with the stick than he normally would.

“So, ya’ll say this is a red gem we’re lookin’ for?” Applejack interrupted.

Cloud nodded. “Yeah. Hopefully still in the regulation brown Weather Vest, though I guess it could’ve gotten torn and fallen out in her little chase.”
“Ah sure hope not.” AJ shivered, before sniffing. “Whoof. More animal scat on the breeze. Ya’ll smell that? Awful sulphuric.”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Growled Cloud Cover. “And we’re getting close- whoah!” he disappeared into the underbrush with a yelp and a splat, and AJ was already moving to help him. Poking out through the new hole in the brush, she almost retched in disgust.

Cloud Cover had slid downhill right into the bottom of a massive mound of Dragon shit. It was about twice the size of a good-sized stack of hay, and roughly the same shape. Steam gently wafted off all of it, and a new colony of flies had seemingly sprung up in the clearing it had created on impact. Above the canopy had a gaping hole in it, open to the sky. This had fallen from pretty high up.

“Ee-yuck. Musta been a migratin’ Dragon. Well, climb out of that, and shake yourself off. Tracker must be wonky again.”

Cloud Cover was busy retching as he tried to climb out, only sliding back in. Eventually he tossed the tracker wand up to Applejack, who almost caught it in her teeth before thinking better of it. She checked it, before noticing something odd. “...Huh.”

As Cloud Cover started stomping hoofholds in the hill to get out, Applejack began circling the crater, keeping the stick turned to the pile of shit. Eventually, she’d made a full revolution around it, and it had steadily beeped at the pile the entire way. “Uh… Mr. Cover? I’m hopin’ this doohicky ain’t actually tuned right…”

“What?” He hissed, splaying his wings and trying to shake the primaries clean. AJ just held up the tracker, and his eyes went wide.

“You don’t think-”

“Ah really hope not. Hold my hat.” She passed her stetson to him, and hopped down the hill, sliding into the slurry of badly-digested meat and gemstones. Eventually she managed to nail down the tracker’s signal on one side of the shit pile, and took a deep breath, before poking it inside. A tuft of Rainbow mane poked out.

Her eyes lit up. “Rainbow! Lan’sakes, filly, can you hear-” She started pawing at it, all cleanliness forgotten, before the tuft of hair slurped out of the pile.

“R...Rainbow?”

After a little more pawing at the mound, a larger chunk started sliding away. Cloud Cover approached just as it broke away. Inside, a meagre clump of bones, fur, and mane had all been bunched together around a skull. Applejack’s trembling hoof reached in, pulling it out… And revealing the tracker gem.

Author's Note

A request from IronGhostXLIII, on Eka's Portal!

Lots of fun with this one... and maybe just a little bit of continuity.