Laments of the Dimension-Stranded

The cave was dry and freezing. Rainbow Dash wrapped the brown scarf tighter around her neck, tucking her multicolored tail between her rear legs as she shivered.

Residual twilight from outside spilled through the cave mouth, pooling on the ground. Rainbow intentionally raised her foreleg and clopped her hoof against the grey stone. The sound echoed off of the rock walls, bouncing ceaselessly before being absorbed by the black void.

"You must be freezing, Dash." Vincent began walking forwards into the cave, shining his flashlight's white beam around.

Rainbow snorted sharply. She transferred the flashlight she had been clutching in her teeth to her hoof. "I am, just a little. Thanks for the scarf."

"Keine Ursache.

"Stop." Vincent approached the precipice of a vertical drop. He gazed down over the edge, whistling. "Ach du heilige Scheiße!"

Rainbow approached the precipice and gazed down into the black abyss. Despite shining her flashlight down into the void, the darkness was impenetrable. She couldn't see the bottom.

They circumnavigated the hole, descending deeper through a tunnel.

"Do you have extras of these things?" Rainbow glanced at the flashlight attachment mounted to the rail on the side of the handguard of Vincent's Kalashnikov rifle.

"Got two extra nine-volts for your flashlight. We'll be fine.

"Slav who used to own this rifle was a rich boy... it's not every day you see an AK with rails."

Rainbow inserted her flashlight between her teeth again and began sweeping it across the cave's walls as she walked, highlighting the blank, featureless rock walls.

A wave of chilly air made her pause as it washed over her. She shivered, her body trembling involuntarily.

"You need a coat or somethin', Dash." Vincent paused, chuckling to himself. "You're gonna need a bigger boat, Roy Scheider."

They walked in utter silence for a few moments, descending.

"Celestia, it's dark." Rainbow paused to sweep her flashlight around the surrounding area before inserting it between her teeth once again, training it at the ground where she was walking. The pathway they were following was gradually broadening. Rainbow accidentally kicked a rock, causing it to bounce and clatter noisily against the rock floor.

"What, you afraid of the dark or something?"

"No!" Rainbow immediately defended herself, spitting out the flashlight. "It's just... it sounds like..."

A wave of cold air washed over her. "It sounds like its breathing."

"The cave is alive!" Vincent mocked her, grinning.

Rainbow's flashlight winking out made her jump. She squeaked, retreating away from the oppressive, crushing black and closer to Vincent.

"Well, that's one battery gone. Guess these things are old." Vincent reached into a pocket in his pants and tossed Rainbow a nine-volt battery. She clumsily struggled to unscrew the plastic cap near the grip of the flashlight with her teeth, withdrawing the dead nine-volt and inserting the new one. She flipped the switch on her flashlight, relieved when the white beam of light returned anew.

"What would you do if our lights died right now?"

Rainbow stopped walking, genuinely pondering the prospect. "W - we could probably feel our way out. The hole's near the entrance, we might be able to see it if our eyes adjusted."

Rainbow kicked some small stones with a hoof in an attempt to distract herself from her fright.

"Ch - ch - ch, ah - ah - ah..." Vincent made six odd noises with his lips and throat. It sounded like chanting.

"What?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow, frowning confusedly.

Vincent looked disappointed. "Oh, yeah, I guess you wouldn't know who Jason Voorhees is, huh?"

"Who?"

"He's a horror movie villain. Murders teenage campers with a machete." Vincent sighed in a bittersweet fashion. "Hey, Dash, if we ever make it out of Nowhere alive, we gotta watch Friday the 13th and drink beer together. That movie's a classic. It'd be a blast."

"I'm not gettin' drunk anywhere near you, Vinny. You seem like the kinda type to either get really flirty or really angry. Either way, doesn't sound like a fun time to me."

"In my defense, you can't get drunk on Budweiser—I've tried." Vincent raised his left hand to gesticulate, temporarily releasing the underbarrel grip of his Kalashnikov rifle.

Rainbow clutched her flashlight in her teeth and continued walking.

The tunnel they had been following eventually broadened into a cavern. The ground was encrusted with a flat sheet of opaque teal ice, occasionally interrupted by spikes of rock protruding from the ground.

Their white beams of light reflected brilliantly off of the teal ice, casting blue-greenish light onto the rock walls of the cave.

"Whaa—!" Rainbow's hooves lost traction on the slippery ice and she fell onto her butt, rotating in circles several times. Her plastic flashlight clattered noisily onto the hard ice and skidded away a few feet.

Vincent laughed aloud at Rainbow's predicament. "Nice going, jackass!"

"Shut up!" Rainbow stood onto all four hooves cautiously to avoid slipping and carefully approached her flashlight, extending her wings to maintain her balance. She walked with long, precise strides.

She bowed her neck and plucked the flashlight off of the ice with her teeth. She folded her wings against her back, her body quivering as she shivered. Her flanks were freezing.

Vincent stepped onto the ice cautiously. He swept the barrel of his rifle across the wide chamber, scanning for pathways.

Rainbow smiled dreamily, reminded of Pinkie Pie who used to ice-skate to divide the ice of frozen lakes into cubes during Winter Wrap-up in Ponyville.

Rainbow clutched her flashlight securely between her teeth to assure she wouldn't drop it and accelerated rapidly, flapping her wings powerfully to propel herself as she skillfully slid across the ice. She alternated her weight between her left hooves to her right hooves. It wasn't ice-skating so much as it was sliding, but it was fun.

Rainbow leapt over a rock, spinning in midair. She giggled. "C'mon, Vincent! Try it! This is fun!"

"If I tried that, I'd fall on my ass and look like an idiot." Vincent chuckled. "Don't go too far, Dash. It's dark over there!"

Rainbow had unintentionally skated to one of the corners of the underground chamber shrouded in darkness. It was an angle the beam from Vincent's flashlight failed to illuminate.

Rainbow attempted to cancel her momentum by planting all of her hooves firmly against the ice and unfurling her wings, spreading them. Unfortunately, her momentum was impossible to halt on the slippery ice. She was sent hurtling over the edge down into the pitch-black void. She screamed briefly in fright before her body struck a hard surface. Her weight compressed her chest, forcing a sharp squawk from her mouth as oxygen evacuated her lungs.

Rainbow tumbled for several seconds before collapsing onto a flat rock surface. She groaned, disoriented.

"Rainbow!"

Rainbow could hear Vincent shouting her name.

"I - I'm okay! M - mostly..." Rainbow moaned in pain, managing to stand onto her hooves. Dizzy, she swayed, struggling to maintain her balance. It was too dark to see. She could feel sharp stabs of pain in her chest and legs. It felt like she had been punctured repeatedly. She tasted the unmistakable tang of blood. She had probably bit her own tongue.

Rainbow rotated to face the correct direction and gazed up into the tunnel she had fallen through. It was a tunnel that curved downwards in a sharp diagonal decline. If it had been a sheer vertical fall, she probably would have died on impact.

A gentle glow of light behind her attracted Rainbow's attention. She turned to investigate.

The blue glow brightened as the nearby creature uttered a quiet clicking sound. It uncoiled its massive serpentine body and opened one gigantic colorless eye, examining Rainbow with the contempt one might feel when being pestered by an annoying insect. Sharp black spikes and spines protruded from its body. Rainbow couldn't tell if the creature was emaciated and bony or simply had no skin. Bands surrounded its serpentine body, emitting vivid artic-blue luminescence that illuminated the entire chamber and made Rainbow squint.

A blast of freezing air struck Rainbow as the colossal drake snorted.

"Vincent! RUN!" Rainbow's warning was drowned out as the drake opened its gigantic maw and roared resoundingly, discharging a cloud of tiny water particles that descended and clung to every surface, including Rainbow's coat and mane, where they immediately began to freeze and form ice crystals. Chilled to the bone, Rainbow shook the ice crystals off of herself and scurried away, beginning to climb the diagonal tunnel as quickly as she could. Her hooves skidded occasionally off of the slippery, icy rocks.

"What the hell's going on down there‽" Vincent shined his flashlight into the pit. Rainbow forced herself to continue climbing, focusing on the white, artificial flashlight beam.

"Oh fuck!" Vincent fired several shots at the drake pursuing Rainbow, which, in the tight, confined cave, deafened her. The bullets ricocheted audibly off of the drake's impenetrable armor, failing to impede it.

Vincent knelt on one knee and extended a hand, grasping Rainbow's hoof and firmly dragging her to her hooves. She began galloping towards the exit the moment her hooves touched the ground, slipping on the ice sheet occasionally. Her dizziness triggered her to lose her balance more than she would have otherwise.

Vincent was right behind her, attempting to hold his rifle steady and shine the flashlight beam in the direction they were recklessly sprinting. It was their only source of light in the otherwise pitch-black cave.

Rainbow could hear the drake pursuing them, roaring threateningly and scraping its spines against the rock walls.

"The hole!"

Rainbow comprehended Vincent's warning too late to evade the hole. She leapt over the pit, flapping her clipped wings several times to give herself a meager boost.

When Rainbow finally emerged from the cave beneath the dim light of Nowhere's moon, she noticed Vincent pause, glancing at the Inexorable.

"Forget the fucking car! Come on! Shine the light so I can see!" She galloped north through the forest with Vincent close behind, shoving aside branches and bushes.

The drake was still relentlessly pursuing them. It demolished trees with its enormous mass, snapping them like mere dead twigs.

A blast of freezing air struck Rainbow as the drake roared furiously, coating the entire forest with a mist of magical ice crystals.

"Where the hell are we going‽"

"I..." Rainbow paused, panting irregularly. She winced in pain. "I don't know!"

Rainbow heard her hooves clopping on stone, which made her frown in confusion briefly. It was only when she gazed down that it occured to her the stone was jet-black stone.

"It's the swamp! GET BACK!" Rainbow planted her hooves firmly against the rock ground and unfurled her wings, spreading them widely to utilize them as an improvised parachute. She managed to decelerate before she sent herself careering over the precipice into the effervescing goo below.

She heard the drake crashing through the forest behind her and had enough time to rotate and face it before it pounced like a cat directly at her. Rainbow's heart stopped beating. She gulped, terrified.

The drake sailed through the air, spreading its clawed legs and swiping at her as it soared over her head and landed directly into the Acid Swamp. It had fatally miscalculated its jump.

The drake convulsed its serpentine form helplessly, thrashing and wailing in agony as the boiling-hot, green acidic sludge clung to its body and began to dissolve it.

The drake's internal arctic flame extinguished as it died. The vivid blue glow emanating from the bands encircling its body ceased forever.

Rainbow observed the drake's corpse wither like a dying flower, decomposing into ash that was caught and swept away by wind or absorbed by the Acid Swamp voraciously.

Stressed and injured, Rainbow panted, sitting back on her haunches and gazing into the thoughtless, insatiable green tide. The drake was dead. Its remains had been scattered and disintegrated. She suspected she should have felt relieved, but all she felt was sorrow and guilt.

"You're bleeding," Vincent observed. He knelt alongside her and pressed a finger gingerly against an abrasion on her shoulder where blue fur and skin had worn away. Rainbow winced, jerking her body away instinctively.

She sighed, her ears drooping sadly. She adjusted her brown scarf, tightening it. "I caused this. We shouldn't have gone down there."

"Weren't your fault." Vincent reached with his fingers and jangled his dog tags. "That thing probably just had a bad case of the munchies, and you and I were the closest munchees."

"I woke it up. It was angry." Rainbow frowned. "I..." She winced, holding up one of her forelegs. As the adrenaline gradually faded from her system, she became keenly aware of a stabbing pain in one of her hooves. A drop of blood tricked through her fur, trailing downwards. She resisted the urge to gaze down at herself, fearful of what she would witness.

"You don't look so good, Dash." Vincent frowned, concerned. "I think that's ice. It's buried in you like shrapnel, everywhere."

Rainbow was too exhausted to properly communicate. "Help me... please."

Vincent wordlessly stood and retrieved his rifle where he had deposited it onto the ground, slinging it over a shoulder. "I'm guessin' ya don't want me to carry you."

"I can walk. Or limp, at least." Rainbow felt another stabbing pain shoot through her hoof. She grimaced in discomfort.

Rainbow laid down on her side, resting her body weight on Vincent's crossed legs as he sat on the ground and delicately plucked tiny bits and larger chunks of ice from her flesh.

It was supremely uncomfortable. Every chunk of ice withdrawn from her body triggered a small jolt of pain, and the Inexorable's bright headlight beams were shining directly into her eyes.

"Show me the hoof," Vincent ordered. Rainbow obediently rolled onto her back and presented her forelegs, too exhausted to speak.

She cried out when Vincent used his delicate fingers to pluck a thin spike of ice from the sensitive section of her hoof. He hissed, wincing in sympathy. "I think that's all of it. Sorry."

Rainbow sighed, relaxing her body and resting her head on Vincent's crossed legs near his crotch. If not for the fact they were in the position because he had kindly assisted and healed her, it would have been considered awkward and immodest. The thoughts didn't cross her mind.

Vincent brushed a finger against her chest, holding it aloft in the light provided by the Inexorable's headlights. It was coated in fresh, red blood. "IFAK had small plasters. Those'd be perfect," he noted aloud.

Gently, Vincent shoved Rainbow off of his lap. She understood the memo and sat up onto her haunches, swaying slightly. Her head continued to ache with dizziness, and she was still feeling disoriented.

Vincent opened the Inexorable's door to access the back seat and began digging through their belongings. He returned with the Slavic IFAK pouch, sitting crosslegged on the ground. He waved with a hand invitingly.

Rainbow crawled into his lap, lying on her side and relaxing her body with a sigh.

Vincent dabbed the numerous cuts and scrapes adorning her body with antibacterial wipes and covered them with small plasters. The plasters were attached directly to her fur and would likely hurt when removed, but for the moment Rainbow didn't care.

"My dad was a medic." Vincent spoke softly as he treated Rainbow's wounds. "He told me..." He paused, considering. "'Wasn't supposed to fight. I wasn't ordered to. But they stuck a rifle in my hands and ordered me to rush under fire towards the wounded. I felt angry. I became a combat soldier in those moments, too, like everyone else.'"

Rainbow rolled onto her other side to allow Vincent to access the cuts on the opposite side of her body. She unfurled her wing partly to permit him access beneath it momentarily.

"He... sounds like a hero."

Vincent smiled slightly. "He was, based on what he told me. He was a hell of a man.

"Where you came from..." Vincent paused temporarily as he considered how to phrase his question. "Equestria? Does it see war?"

"Not for a very long time." When Vincent finished treating her injuries, Rainbow remained lying in his lap, gazing up at him. "There hasn't been a major conflict in Equestria for at least 1000 years. Princess Celestia and the Elements of Harmony have kept evil in check. My friends and I, too.

"I, um... have never told anypony this... I haven't even told my friends this." Rainbow hesitated. Feeling uncomfortable, she looked away, avoiding eye contact.

Vincent remained silent, patiently waiting for her to continue. He frowned seriously.

"I had a dream years ago. There was a war in the Frozen North near the Crystal Empire. King Sombra returned and imprisoned Princess Cadence and her family and led an army against Celestia. I served with the Wonderbolts on the frontlines. There was blood on snow... and..." Rainbow clenched her eyes shut tightly momentarily as she recalled the terrible memory. "I lost my left wing to a magical blast."

Vincent winced sympathically. "It was just a dream."

"It felt... real. It felt like it really happened." Rainbow paused. "Twilight and Spike retrieved the Crystal Heart and stopped Sombra when he came back. But if they had failed, then... Maybe my world really would have turned that ugly."

"You sound pretty smart, Dash." Vincent pursed his lips. His voice was soft and gentle. "I was doubtful before. Thought you had a hero complex. You do, to an extent.

"Promise me you'll never go to war. I know you, kid. I know you think you're invincible and you think you can be a hero or a soldier. You're not. No one can. Heroism isn't a title you earn, it's a title thrust upon you unwillingly."

Rainbow wanted to protest how Vincent had addressed her as "kid", but she was too exhausted to argue.

"War is a neutralizer. It claims the innocent, the brave, the stupid and the heroic and it bends them.

When I left Afghanistan, I felt like a weapon without a purpose. I spent time hunting alone. I felt like no one understood me. I thought my girlfriend was gaslighting me. That hurt the most because I loved her... and I still do. I could feel myself splitting and going insane."

Vincent brushed his fingers against his dog tags, jangling them. He looked away, avoiding eye contact.

For once, Rainbow observed Vincent withdraw and act reserved. She laid in his lap, listening to the sounds of the forest and nature surrounding them. The rumbling of the Inexorable's engine drowned much of it out.

"You haven't promised."

Rainbow nodded slowly. "I promise.

"I'll never forget these conversations we've had."

"Ah." Vincent made a soft noise. A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Good kid. You're young. You're gonna live a good life. I'm gonna make sure of it by workin' to get you off of Nowhere."

"What about you?"

Vincent licked his dry lips. "You know what I'm gonna say."

Rainbow did know. She didn't want to accept it as truth. "Your life isn't over."

"It's not over, but... my girlfriend's probably moved on. My old man died. My friend Jacob killed himself a few months before I came to Nowhere. He didn't even call me. He didn't even email me. He just gave up."

"Why?"

"He just got... tired of living, one day. That's the curse of being a soldier. People carry the weight with them for years."

Rainbow sighed, her ears drooping sadly. "I'm... getting in the car, now." She stood onto her hooves and tightened the brown scarf around her throat, plodding heavily towards the Inexorable. She circled around to the right side and leapt up into the passenger's seat, sitting back on her haunches.

Vincent unloaded and stored his rifle into the back seat of the Inexorable before climbing into the driver's seat of the truck. He closed his door and reached a hand beneath the steering wheel, rotating the car key in the ignition. The engine shut off abruptly.

"It's late. Didn't think we'd be down there for so long." Vincent yawned. He adjusted his car seat so the back was positioned diagonally and leaned back, tilting his head low and resting his hands over his waist. He clasped his fingers together.

Rainbow thought he had fallen asleep before he spoke again. "Get some sleep while you can, Dash. Suns'll rise in a couple hours."

Rainbow obediently curled into a little ball on the passenger's seat, resting her multicolored tail over her muzzle. She sighed, relaxing the tension from her body. She lied still, feeling the subtle sensations of pain flicker at the sites of her many bandaged cuts and scrapes.