The Bloody Sunrise

Rainbow Dash falls to her haunches and can do nothing but watch as Princess Celestia falls to her knees, blood spewing from an open wound on her neck, splattering the cracked mesa that is now The Crystal Empire. King Sombra surprised at his success laughs hysterically as the cheers of his dark army erupts across the plains. Rainbow Dash knowing that she can't stay, gallops in the opposite direction towards a rocky hill.

Passing the bodies of both armies makes it clear that the casualties of both sides are tremendous. Blood and gore seeps through every crack and crevice of the dry, war torn wasteland, creating a river effect down the vast expanse. Craters and wreckage adorn the battlefield, destruction being the only entity to truly survive.

Using the cover of the dark, early morning sky, she makes her way to a formation of boulders and wedges herself in between them, making sure to keep off her broken wing. A gash in her foreleg bleeds openly onto the rock it's sitting against but pain isn't something that Rainbow Dash could feel. All of her efforts and Equestria's efforts to set things right; to stop Sombra and free the Crystal Ponies from their brutal and torturous enslavement, is in vain. The permanently sleeping body of the goddess of the sun lies broken and bloody among the drafted soldiers of two nations.

The word failure pings it's way into Rainbow Dash's mind, leaving the sting of the winter wind on her body. She shakes her head back and forth slowly. How could we fail? She wonders absentmindedly. She realizes the reality of the situation but it sits on her mind as if it were nothing more than a filly's nightmare. She's seen enough within the past few weeks to feed a psychosis for the rest of her life.

"I gave my all," she says with defeat and leans her head back against the rock, the blood in her mane matting itself to her shoulders. She looks to the night sky, a light picking up on the horizon of the direction she is facing. She watches the light for Celestia only knows- wait...Celestia wouldn't know. She couldn't know.

Rainbow Dash leans up, strands of her blood-soaked rainbow mane sticking to the cool rock, a stain of red remaining where her head was laying. She turns around slightly and looks over the rocks towards where she had come from. The battlefield is quiet, there is no conflict. A few members of Sombra's army are trotting along in the distance heading for the castle, casting looks over to Celestia's cold body as they pass.

Knowing that nopony else will be able to do so, Rainbow Dash walks out from behind the rocks and slowly walks her way towards Celestia. Rainbow Dash treks across the mangle of bodies and destroyed siege weapons once again but this time with only one goal in mind. She is constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure nopony is around and the coast is clear as far as Rainbow Dash can tell and within a few moments she is standing over the lifeless personification of the sun. Her white coat is stained and sticky from the blood that has slowed its flow from her neck. Her eyes are closed and it looks almost as if she is just in a peaceful slumber. Rainbow Dash mourns the sight of the fallen angel, tears beginning to swell in her eyes.

"We failed you," Rainbow Dash says solemnly. She close her eyes and her face muscles tighten as she breathes in a struggled breath of air. "I failed you." She hangs her head low in grievance, a lone tear wetting the dry ground below her.

A few bright rays of light beam over the horizon coating the sky in a splatter of red. The black smoke from the remnants of battle mix in with the color of the sky, giving it a deathly appearance.

Rainbow Dash looks over to these beams of light and how it glistens off of every piece of armor and every pool of blood for as far as they eye can see, almost looking like a red sea. The sky and the earth blend together harmoniously making it difficult to tell where the earth ends and the atmosphere begins.

Rainbow Dash chuckles hysterically. The sky really does reflect the color of the sea.

The moment is interrupted by shouting and a massive pony standing tall in the distance. This pony wears a triumphant smile and a flowing black mane and hooked, red horn. King Sombra laughs as he magically creates a cage from the earth and entraps Rainbow Dash within its stone bars.

Sombra walks closer to get a good look at the last living enemy pony on the battlefield. "Well, what do we have here?" Sombra asks with a devious tone. "Why, it is none other than Princess Celestia's second-in-command, Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow Dash ignores his mockery and glares at him with an expression of pain and defeat and exhales harshly through her snout. Sombra stares at the body of Princess Celestia and releases a sigh. "You know, it didn't have to be this way," Sombra begins pacing around the body. "If she had just left the Crystal Empire to me instead of trying to take what is rightfully mine, she'd still be living and this whole war would have never happened."

Rainbow Dash spits in front of his hooves and retorts, "Save me your false sympathy."

"Mind your tongue before you lose it," Sombra replies quickly and calmly. After pondering for a moment Sombra continues, "You aren't so different from my soldiers, you know." He awaits for a reply from Celestia's general but upon not receiving one, he says, "Very loyal, doing nothing more than following orders." Rainbow Dash sits down on her haunches and stares at Celestia's limp body. He isn't wrong. She possesses undying loyalty and every order she was given she carried out without question. "Fighting for what's right."

Rainbow Dash's eyes narrow as she looks up and meets Sombra's glowing green and red eyes. "If you think that enslaving ponies and torturing them if they don't do what you say, you couldn't be more wrong." Rainbow Dash looks back down at Celestia's body and doesn't say anything else.

"You see, little pony," Sombra begins slowly. "There is no such thing as right and wrong. It is only a matter of perspective." He waits for her response but doesn't receive one.

Rainbow Dash remains quiet; she doesn't feel that there is anything to say. Several moments come to pass and Sombra says, "It really is too bad that you won't live long enough to put that philosophy to use." His horn lights up and the ground next to Rainbow Dash shifts slightly as a shard of rock expels from the earth and hits Rainbow Dash square in the chest. She releases a burst of screaming and topples over onto her back, landing on her broken wing. Tears of agony fall freely down her flushed cheeks as she grabs her chest with her hooves, holding on to the stone dagger.

Sombra turns his back and walks away. Rainbow Dash feels her life slipping away as her lungs fill with blood and it begins to trail down her face. She doesn't fight it; she hates losing but she knows when she has lost. Her head rolls to the side and looks out to the glowing sun as her vision is turning dark. Her eyes then close and her body goes limp and her hooves fall to her side.

Rainbow Dash becomes just another drop in a sea of blood; just a speck in an ocean of red, glistening in The Bloody Sunrise.