Red skies and black ground; never had such a contrast been so excruciating. No clouds existed in this scarlet sky, only a blank canvas of deepening reds and oranges over the horizon, stretching on over the darkened world. Pulsing red light clashed with a blackend, blank slate of earth.
They pierced the sky above every few miles, their sprawling forms reaching out to the heavens. Black as coal, shapes of the kind she could not even begin to describe, they had overtaken the wastes around the pegasus.
This sky had once been hers, but not it certainly belonged to them. To the towers.
Rainbow Dash shivered, her unkempt fur spasming along her spine as she landed on the rocky hills. The tower extended into the sky, so very high that she could hardly see the end. Though she couldn’t see the height of the spire's end, she knew those towers were tall, taller than anything else.
Her hooves scraped the earth below, walking unsteadily along the soil, she dare not fly in their presence. The gurgling buzz of the towers flooded her senses, their ominous metal forms creaking in the nonexistent wind and quaking beneath an unmoving earth. Rainbow ripped her gaze from it.
Wings flapping, she pushed herself forward, rocketing away from the black forms. Closing her crimson eyes, the mare let the heavens take her, flying on aged instinct to the only place she knew. Muscles clenched in her wings, a burning heat spreading through her appendages at the familiar actions. Rainbow knew her body had become much too weak for flight, ripping open muscles and tearing flesh every time she flew.
Opening her eyes greeted her with the vision of hell, though one she was used to by this point. Crimson skies and onyx grounds, cracks of a slightly lighter color of orange splitting the heavens as lighting raced up high above. Rainbow’s eyes absentmindedly traced the contours of scarlet and tangerine, faded and bleak, as they raced along the endless skies.
Her hooves twitched below her, a whiff of something unsightly catching her scent. Turning her eyes to the ground below, the mare let her irises take in every little detail. The slightest divot in the ground that signaled the ravines and caverns hidden below the black soil. Lifeless and dead.
Hills scattered along the distance gave off the faintest of scarlet glows as the light from the sky reflected off the hardened volcanic glass. Twilight, endless twilight. There was no sun and o moon, the lesser gods had died and given way to a world overtaken by timeless hell. A hymn, just the faintest of eerie rings sounded off from the very earth.
The noise was far from comforting.
Her gaze fell upon the black mountains in the distance, the shattered remains of stone and gold buried underneath hundreds of tons of rocks. Rainbow couldn’t remember its name.
The woods far over the horizon, beyond that mountainous vale, she could still feel it. The breezeless air against her wings began to pick up speed, whipping up speed as she approached the horizon, the looming tower pulsing its horrific aura.
Sweat dripped into her fur. She did not look.
Gritting her teeth, the mare sped past the towering spire of black, breathing heavily. Rainbow felt tears stream down her face. Sniffling, the pegasus continued her ascent into the sky, putting as much distance as possible between her and one of the wretched towers.
The cloudless sky became her world for the next half hour or so. Only the dark red sky surrounding her, the ground below invisible to her keen vision. Hovering in place for a moment, the mare gazed around blankly. That everlasting throb of distorted bass flooded her ears.
Heart spiking, Rainbow let her wings stop, body falling along a red curtain. The howling winds blew through her ears, giving her a much-needed rush of adrenaline.
The distortion was drowned by the sharp squeal of rushing and air, a small smile gracing her muzzle. She angled her wings, gliding over the mountains. Up close, the lack of light became less of a detriment, allowing the mare to be able to discern the tiny details.
Smooth, glassy rock covered the base of the range, climbing up to jagged stones and cliffs of marble and granite. Along the contours and crevices, a section of the tallest peak stood out among the rest. The face was misshapen and craggy, a massive tumble of stones and boulders.
Deep furrows of ash and dust, the stones misshapen and covered in stains of dark green and volcanic black, til by the hellish red light from the heavens above would be extinguished, glowed under her. Buried beneath, the ruins of the great capital of her previous home, a place she had once known quite well.
Glowing pieces of silver and gold peeked from beneath the boulders and crags, illuminated in scarlet and highlighted in lavish violet, called to her from below, a mere piece of gold amongst a ruin of coal and ash and blood.
As the shattered ruins below faded behind the mountain tips, the mare returned her attention to the land beyond its primordial structure. A forest of both black and red lay in the ruined valley. Deeper down, further beneath the haze of red, the blackened detritus of her home, the place she had once spent her days laughing and loving life.
No more.
Now the ruins, cloaked inside a misty miasma of crimson, overshadowed by both the tyrannical mountains to the north and overgrown by the destruction of the Everfree. She frowned, her emotions playing havoc with her as the day closed and she was forced to return to this place. Her home, what was left of it anyway.
Wingbeats became the only thing audible within the town as the flight drew to a close. Rainbow’s hooves became cladden with ash, the spectral grey coating the tips of her faded cyan fur. A shaky breath escaped her, the unbearable cold of the forgotten valley overwhelming her overgrown fur.
Ghosts, silent, and weeping crept between the smoldering ash of buildings once teeming with life and energy. Atrophy swallowed the wooden foundations in time’s grim grasp. This had once been the place of something proud and prideful.
A bakery there, the smells of pastries and flour wafting out of an oven, the heat giving her the homely feeling of comfort. Shouts and laughter, the sensations of music and mayhem as a party unfolded. Now all that remained was the burnt foundation, an empty shell, quiet and dead.
Further down the street, a carousel, half blown out and the other black and lifeless. A mare of conviction, of class, of focus, and such an atmosphere reflected in her craft. Memories of boredom, thoughts of the time she had spent, now forever lost. Oh, how she wished she had loved it.
Dead roots stuck from the ground, the husk of a tree, rotten and decayed, swallowed in atrophy and poison. Book, hundreds had once lined this hall, knowledge untamed and wild, just waiting to be unearthed. If its gatekeeper could see it now she would be broken-hearted. Rainbow’s tail limply plodded behind her; she missed that gatekeeper.
Eyes low, the mare plodded out of town, not caring for the slow pace that would have once frayed her patience and snapped her senses. The dirt was hard and unyielding on the empty husk of a field.
The farm, consumed by the Everfree, just as everything else had. Bits of broken metal, slabs of decayed wood, they all lay here covered in red soot and thorny branches. Rotten and discolored, the foundation of a few building, their shapes covered in forest.
Rainbow sighed lowly, memories of fun and games, of laughter and arguments, of races and competitions. This world had moved on, yet she remained.
Loyalty for a reason, even in rot and atrophy. Loyal to the end.
A bone in the soot reminded her of that one final destination, of a trek further into the new Everfree, further into nightmares and horror. An overgrown forest, dead but still growing, alive but still hopelessly lifeless.
The hellish glow from above refused to penetrate the black woods, the trunks twisted and coiled in thorns and discolored leaves. The only other life besides her own. As her hooves dragged in the dry ground and her wings ached from the thorny branches, the decayed cottage came into view.
The most intact of the town, the house stood tall, as tall as it once had, so many years ago. The cursed magic that imbued her own body, seeping into the very structure itself.
Rainbow felt a thick lump in her throat, choking her as she laid her eyes on it, the cottage. It had been years since she had last been here. Tears built in the pit of her eye, unashamed. She hadn’t deserved this, none of them had.
Fluttershy had stayed, even when the world had burnt to ash, she had stayed even when it had frozen over to a hardened hell. The demure pegasus, her oldest friend, she had died caring for her sick and weary friends.
The door to the building stood miles above her, so tall and imposing. Choking on her breath and sorrow, the pegasus turned, running far, as far away as she could get from the house.
Loyal. Yet she had run just as hard when Fluttershy chose to stay.
Up in the sky, she had become used to the sight of her home, at least back in the life before.
When the storm had hit, her cloud home had been blown away in an instant, the very fabric of the structure ripped away and all her belongings scattered over the chaotic town. Rainbow did not go home to sleep. The pegasus found her solace in Twilight’s battered castle, just outside of town.
Somehow, the castle had withstood the wind and the fire, scorched and blackened, just as everything else, yet still standing. Rainbow thanked whatever gods existed still in this world for that small little tidbit.
The castle doors were hard pressed to open, the gears and levers rusted and stuck shut from both age and element alike. Inside the building, it remained much intact, the halls and rooms barren and faded with age, but still very much intact.
With tentative steps, the mare made her way through the lifeless castle, through abandoned rooms and halls, to the one room she feared more than any other, however, it was the only one she felt safe in. Its high ceiling gave her respite from the constant entrapment from the box of the outside world, an endlessly writhing expanse of bloody crimson and bleak onyx.
The map room.
The room was dark and the air stale, the magic that once lit the room and gave the place life now dead and cold. Rainbow shivered, but pressed on regardless, stepping slowly and quietly over to her chair.
Her’s remained, the crystal bright and shining, yet the rest did not have the same luck. A grimace on Rainbow’s muzzle, she eyed the rest of the chairs, gulping in pain at the deformed nature of the place.
The pillows and cushions she rested on had long ago began to show signs of breakdown, but they were the only ones left, so the pegasus tried not to complain too much as she settled into the seat, wrapping the thick blankets around her shivering body.
Morning did not wake the world, only she did. Despite the bleak and unchanging lighting outside the castle, the mare felt exhaustion weigh heavy on her body, emaciated and weak as it was. Cursed to be forever hungry and thirsty, yet undying, undying on a world where everything else was dead.
Rainbow had always resolved, ever since the day she had woken up after the world had ended to find a cure, to save her home from this hell. There was still hope, buried deep within the pegasus’s mind, hope for the world, hope for lost friends.
Hope for herself.
Invisible hands groped at her throat, tearing burrows in her fur and flesh. With a scream and a cry from deep inside her throat, the mare shot up with a groan and heavy breathing. Flipping the blankets off her shivering and shaking body, Rainbow stood up on limbs much too weak.
Collapsing to the floor, she heaved, stomach quivering and sliding in her gut. Coughs escaped her, blood dribbling from between her cracked lips. Gasping and heaving from the effort, Rainbow doubled over, eyes clenching shut tight.
The world spun, the distorted bass ringing within her skull far too loud, the horrible noise pulsing within her ears and shattering all of her grip on reality for several long, drawn-out moments. Bringing a hoof to her shivering lips, she but deep into her own flesh, letting the pain gather some thought in her head.
It took several minutes before it began to subside, thoughtless images and splatterings of black upon her mind’s eye. The heavenly glow of red and the hellish beauty of crimson echoed inside her.
All was Scarlett, crimson was everything.
Reality snapped back into motion with an almost audible crack, ridding her senses of both image and noise. Rainbow became acutely aware of both her own breathing and the pounding of her beating heart.
The rough ground beneath her cut into her skin and burned her wings. The change didn’t register with her, not for several more minutes, as she lay there, breathing and trembling from the force of the overload.
When the confusion and realization did claim her, she lifted her head wearily, opening her eyes and scanning her surroundings warily. All around her was the bloody skyline and the plains of pitch black onyx.
Her throat let a brief noise of confusion and panic flee. Placing her hooves under her, the limbs trembling in pain and fear, the mare stood, looking around in all directions. Forwards, sideways…. backward….
A tower. It stood right behind her, at least 200 feet away. Her head spun and Rainbow’s eyes widened. The mare’s belly tumbled and she barely had time to register what she was looking at when something happened.
The tower….spoke.
Speak may not be the right word, more as though the very air around her vibrated, yet she had an uncanny sense of where it came from. The towering spire of onyx, she had never been so close to one before. Horror didn't even begin to describe what she saw, the defintion of the word unable to convey the depth of the haunting imagery.
Twisted metal, black as night, curled along the pillar, it’s edges pulsing and seemingly shifting every second. The spire hurt to look at, it’s unconventional structure giving the mare an increasingly intense headache. The geometry of shapes and sizes her mind couldn't even begin to comprehend morphed and pulsed and slodged around along the entirety of the thing.
Her body reacted before her mind did, turning and sprinting away, tripping along the rough stones as she did so. Panicked sense had taken leave of her mind, pushing her far away from the reality-breaking tower, away, further and further. The earthshattering intensity of the stare overwhelmed her sense, causing her to trip, body slamming against the rough rocks, splitting skin and splattering blood.
A noise broke free from the confines of the god behind her, something she hadn’t heard in a very long time. It didn’t register immediately what it even was. Memories pulsed in her head, showing her familiar scenarios and pictures. Where had she heard that?
The realization caused a cold flood to wash over the pegasus.
There is no way…it can’t be…
The more she thought, the surer she became. There was no denying it.
That’s impossible….
The voice screamed again, filled with sorrow, filled with terror, filled to the very brim with panic and confusion. Rainbow stopped, turning with wide eyes and bated breath back to the tower. There was no mistaking it now.
Scootaloo?
