The Luck of the Dice

All she could do was stare at the bright blue feather floating in front of her almost mockingly. Rainbow Dash was not dumb by any means. Slow on the uptake in some areas? Sure, but not dumb. The gears in her head spun at the speed of a sonic rainboom as she pieced things together.

She could see it was the exact same color as her own, while not unheard of, it was highly unlikely a non-family related pony had the same color feather as her. she could also tell it was a feather from a left wing, a side which she lost more feathers from due to the fact she usually twisted to her left side right before she crashes.

A sharp pinch of pain in her wing made her flinch and brought her back to reality. She saw a recently plucked feather float away from here and join the other in front of the princesses. Rainbow was shocked the princesses did that as it was considered very rude and intrusive to yank a pegasus's feather without their permission. They didn't seem to care though as Celestia and Luna both cast spell after spell at the two feathers, Celestia's face growing even angrier by the second.

"The feathers match perfectly." Luna's voice may have been calm but her face showed her shock and disbelief.

"WHAT?!" Rainbow and the others yelled. All head snapped to Rainbow Dash wearing so many different emotions a psychiatrist would have thrown in the towel and retired to a tropical beach. Rainbow's head couldn't decide who to stare in shock at so it just kept going back and forth between them all.

"Rainbow Dash." Celestia's voice was hard as stone and her face matched but her eyes glowed with anger making Rainbow's wings snap closed and she tumbled to the floor. Looking up she saw Celestia towering over her like an all-powerful goddess waiting to burn her to a crisp with just her glare. Rainbow shook with fear and tried to crawl as fast as she could away from the enraged Alicorn. Celestia would not let her get away though and followed her with slow menacing steps.

"You stand accused of the crimes of grand theft against the crown, Treason of the highest order, attempted aggressive actions against Sovern soil with the intent to cause permanent and lasting harm," Each proclamation sounding like the gong of deaths bell to Rainbow's ears as she scrambled to back away. She just managed to get to her hooves when her rump hit the cold stone wall at the front of the throne room. She could go no further. Her veins felt like ice as pure dread filled her soul.

Shaking violently she couldn't break her eyes away from Celestia's slow stalk toward her.

"What say you?" Celestia asked, no, demanded of her. Rainbow couldn't speak, fear had stolen her voice. All that came out past her lips was a pitiful whimper. Luna showed more restraint than her sister and did her best to reign Celestia's rage in. Luna wrapped a wing around her sister drawing the sun raiser gaze. They seemed to have a silent conversation, after which Celestia took many deep breaths.

Rainbow was still terrified but she felt her courage slowly coming back to her, letting her breath and her mind think.

"Rainbow Dash?" Luna's voice was as stern as her sisters but it didn't carry rage like hers. Rainbow was still scared of course but not to the state of not being able to speak. Rainbow's back legs gave out and she slumped against the wall. The flap of her right side saddle bag caught on the stone and her D20 dice fell out. It's clattering on the floor sounded like a boulder falling in a canyon.

It was enough though to draw everyponies attention away, including Rainbows, and they watched as it rolled and stopped on the number 1.

Ooooooooo. I'm glad I'm not you, my dear. Glad indeedy.

The dice was enough to snap Rainbow's mind back into a semblance of order and her wing shot out, grabbing the dice and quickly stuffing it back into the bag. Fear still plagued her mind and so she fell back on an old defense of her's. Get annoyed and try to play it off.

"Okay girls, I don't know who's idea this was but this prank has gone way too far. I nearly soiled myself for pinfeather's sake. I'm all up for a good scare but that was way over the line." She groused, getting back to her hooves, albeit shakily.

"And the whole accusing me of stealing a dangerous artifact from the castle no less? That's some twisted thinking." She glared at the princesses and her friends who had crowded behind them. Celestia returned that glare in kind.

"This is no prank, theif." Celestia spat out that last word like it was the vilest thing she'd ever said. Rainbow had always hated it when others called her a lier, she probably hated it about as much as Applejack did. Now she was being accused of something she didn't even do? Fear shifted into anger and fueled her words.

"I'm not a thief princess! I didn't steal anything from your stupid vault." Rainbow yelled at Celestia, crouching slightly her wings flared at her sides in a defensive manner, trying to make herself seem bigger than she was for intimidation, a natural response to threats for a pegasus. Celestia was not fazed in the slightest. Celestia's mane started to flicker with small flames as her anger started to rise. Twilights voice snagged both their attention, still their anger for a moment.

"What's in your saddlebags Rainbow?" She asked. Her eyes flashed with so many emotions, fear, concern, uncertainty, hope, and most prevalent, hurt. It made Rainbow flinch seeing the hurt in Twilights eyes, hurt that Rainbow could have possibly done this.

AN 8! That's not anywhere near enough. HAHA!

Rainbow's anger rekindled at that. How could her friend actually think that she'd done this? Rainbow was the element of Loyalty for fuck's sake! Does their friendship mean nothing to Twilight if Celestia just accuses her of something? Rainbow's feelings of betrayal and anger fueled her words.

"None of your business Egghead!" She hissed at Her. What had once had been an endearing nickname between them was launched at Twilight with such venom and hate that Twilight reeled back and fell to her haunches like she had been struck. Rainbow instantly felt guilty for that but she couldn't apologize for it, Twilight's seeming betrayal still stung harshly.

"I think it is our business Rainbow Dash." Luna's firm voice cut in.

"What is in your saddlebags?" She asked.

3!!!! Oh, this is just a lovely day.

Rainbow looked to her other friends for support, any kind of help.

"Are you all seriously believing this load of manure?!" She asked them hoping to one of her friends would help. She was only met with nervous, and in Applejack case, cold stares.

"If you got nothing to hide then you shouldn't mind letting us see what you got in them saddlebags of yours." was Applejacks reply. Rainbow's mouth dropped in shock. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. The very friends she cared more about than just about anything, we're actually buying into this and considering she wasn't innocent.

2... and so the final nail is hammered into place. Let the walls come crumbling down!

Anger, sadness, and pain burned like a hot knife in rainbows gut. She glared at her supposed friends before twisting her neck around, grabbing her bags with her teeth and whipping them in front of her. Taking them between her hooves she ripped open the flaps before glaring at the princesses.

"Fine! If you all won't believe me when I say I didn't do it... I'LL PROVE IT!" She snarled at them and raised her bags up and shook them violently to dislodge their contents. A look of pure horror shot onto Celestia and Luna's faces as time seemed to slow down to a crawl.

All of them watched in varying grades of shock, horror, and surprise as Rainbow shook her saddlebags. None were more shocked than Rainbow when from out of her bag came a glass sphere she'd never put in it. Inside the ball was a roiling and writhing mass of darkness and shadows.

Rainbow was too shocked at it being there to catch it. Celestia and Luna were too stunned at Rainbow's angry actions to stop its fall. Twilight was too lost in her own hurt by her friend's words to halt its descent. Applejack was too blinded by anger to think straight. Fluttershy was too scared to even move. Pinkie Pie was too broken-hearted and crying buckets at her best friends fighting to even care and Rarity along with Spike were trying to comfort Twilight.

Only Celestia, Luna and Rainbow dash saw and watched the fulcrum of all their current problems, slowly, almost contemptuously, fall to the stone floor where it shattered into millions of tiny pieces.

The tinkling sound of shattering glass drew all heads toward it. The once small ball of darkness quickly grew and spread around the throne room, shooting to the ceiling, twisting and turning through the arches above before being seemingly pulled back to the point where it all started. It condensed down to a pinprick and for one small, precious second there was complete, silence.

The darkness exploded upwards in an ever-expanding funnel smashing through the roof of the palace and into the sky throwing Celestia, Luna and the girls behind them tumbling backward. Rainbow was slammed into the wall hard enough to crack it and held there like by some giant hoof. Screams like that of banshees, wailing of babes, cries of pain and agony pure, pierced the ears and chilled the hearts of anypony for miles around, drawing their eyes toward the towering pillar of darkness.

Even if it was just small a mercy, it only lasted a few moments before it ended, but the damage had already been done. Rainbow crumpled to the ground in pain and shock, doing her best to force air back into her lungs. Forcing herself to stand, her legs wobbled harshly, feeling more like limp pasta than limbs. She tried to wrap her head around what had just happened but sadly life no longer felt merciful to her.

"What have you done?" Celestia's voice called from further across the throne room and drawing Rainbows attention. Rainbow sees all her friends, looking quite roughed up, but none of them appear to hurt too much. Rainbow was not able to focus on her relief as a wave of pure heat cashed over her like a tidal wave. Her eyes snapped to a blazing Celestia, wreathed in fire, her eyes glowing white in pure rage.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!" She screamed, whipping her head forward and from her horn, a pillar of pure fire roared its way toward a terrified Rainbow. Acting on pure fight or flight instinct, Rainbow tried to fling her self out of the way of the deadly attack from Celestia.

Oh, a skill check, you're lucky it's your DEX. but I'm sad to say, not really, that an 11, even with your +2... isn't as good as you'd hope.

Rainbows legs got caught up in the straps of her dropped saddle bags making her trip and stumble. While she dodged the attack, she didn't dodge it completely.

"AAARRRRRRRGGGHHH!!!" Rainbow screamed in pain as a slightly concave furrow was carved out of part of her barrel, flank, and hip. The smell of burning flesh, hair and blood assaulted her nose and the pain that wracked her body and mind made a two-pronged assault on her senses. Her burnt flesh cracked and split as she scrambled to get away, causing fresh blood to ooze and flow from new wounds.

Fighting through the near blinding pain and looking through tear filled eyes she looked back in horror at where she once sat. The wall was gone. Just gone. There was no ash, no rubble, just a perfect hole in the wall with glowing and quickly cooling orange and yellow edges.

"GUARDS!!" Celestia's bellow shook Rainbow out of her shock and she whipped her head around to find an escape. Her eyes locked onto a window near her. Raising to her hooves, she fought back the scream that wanted to escape her lungs at the pain. Adrenaline poured through her numbing the pain just enough to focus. And she needed it as the throne rooms doors slammed open and the royal guards poured in like an army of angry, golden ants.

"SEIZE HER!" Rainbow didn't even turn around to look, she just charged as fast as she could go and leaped out the window. The shattered glass sliced into her skin but she ignores it as best she could. Pumping her wings hard she screams in pain as her wounds shift but it only fuels her and drives her to fly faster. To get away. She had to get away.

and so it begins.