Rainbow Dash's Super Fun Adventure in Happy Candy Land
By Rex Ivan
Special thanks to Ebon Mane
There was a knock at the door. Rainbow Dash ignored it. It was probably one of her friends trying to get her to cheer up again, or to go out on an adventure, like they used to back when she could still fly. She was laying on the old futon mattress on the floor of the little cabin that was now her home. Her face aimed at the ceiling, she stared at the shine of the long kitchen knife held between her hooves. She waited for the pony at the door to knock again, which they always seemed to do. The second set of knocks came, and she sighed as she tucked the blade back under the mattress.
She righted herself at the edge of the makeshift bed, and reached for the tumbler glass on the small table nearby. Tilting it back she gulped down the remainder of the gin and sour before attempting to stand. All the while she was desperately wishing it wasn't Pinkie Pie standing behind the door. It was always the worst when she came to visit. There were always lots of balloons and streamers and pastries to accompany the forced smiles and attempts to play games that had lost their fun long ago. Out of all of her friends she was the one who was the most cruel, with all her insistence that everything was still going to be alright. She was the one who had the most hope for a brighter future.
“Heh,” Dash muttered to herself as she shakily moved to the door. “Hope. What a cruel ... prank. Stupid Celestia had to give us that even tho' ... tho' we'd just get thrown down again.” She staggered over to the door and rested her head against it.
“Please … jush go away.” Her voice was a whisper that nearly caught in her throat as tears began to well up in her eyes. “I don't wanna' pretend today. Make this stop.”
Another much louder and heavier knock rattled the door against her head, and she took a step backwards. She felt her teeth begin to grind together on their own accord. After two attempts she managed to grasp the door handle and yank it forcefully open.
Scootaloo wore a look of surprise as the door flew open. She quickly tossed aside the rock she held in her hooves, and smiled as she tried not to look too guilty of anything.
Dash's shoulders fell as she looked down on the brightly smiling orange pegasus. “Oh hell, what could you possibly want from me? You KNOW I can't teach you anything now. Why do you still keep coming around?!” She gestured toward the far hillside with the tumbler glass still held in her hoof. “Go on. Scram!”
Scootaloo's smile faltered a bit before she answered. “Well … it's just that you've been spending so much time inside lately. And I just … I thought that … um, you .. you would-”
“I would what? Wanna go for a WALK?!” Dash lowered her head down to the level of the smaller pony as she stepped closer.
“Well, yeah, why not? And, you know, we could always just … hang out and ...” Scootaloo backed away as Dash's reeking breath hit her nostrils.
“Hang out? Heh. HeheHAHAHAAHHAAAA!! HANG OUT!” Dash followed Scootaloo step for step as the young pegasus retreated backwards cringing. “Yeah, I wanna just go an' HANG OUT with the annoyin' orange bastard filly who has two perfectly GOOD WINGS but still can't fly, and who I can't stand the site of. FUN TIMES we'll have then, huh, Scoots!” Scootaloo could only stare at the pony who had once been her idol. She could feel her heart start to sink, as Dash stood up straight now and began to look her up and down with a different expression. Dash got a far away stare in her eyes, and then suddenly smiled and chuckled a bit to herself.
“Hey, you know, I'm just kiddin' ya' squirt. How about you come inside, and I'll let you in on a fun little secret called alcohol. It won't help you fly, but it WILL make it so that you won't care about not flying. Here, come on.” Dash reached to wrap her foreleg around Scootaloo's shoulders, but the younger pony ducked out of the way. Dash's expression was one of honest surprise. She recalled when she was a little filly, she would have jumped at this chance if it had been offered to her.
“Oh, now what's wrong? You said you wanted to hang out, right? So let's go do some hanging out. Come on. Quit being a chicken! Get over here and drink!” She made another staggering swipe for the filly who easily dodged again and ran around behind her.
“No. There's something wrong with you. You're drunk … and … and mean now. I don't want to hang out with a … a dumb loser pony with no wings!” Her eyes were clenched tight, nearly dripping with tears, and she shouted to force out the last part of the sentence. She didn't see the tumbler glass that was thrown squarely at her face. She only saw a white flash that immediately turned to red as a spike of pain hammered it's way into her skull. Her eyes twisted shut as she fell head over hooves backwards, screeching in pain the whole time. Once she came to a stop, she managed to stumble to her hooves, and pry open an eye just enough to make sure she wasn't running toward her attacker.
Had she looked behind her she would have seen the horrified look on her ex-idol's face as she watched the filly screaming and galloping off in no particular direction. The screams faded off into the distance as Rainbow Dash stood in her front lawn and listened, teetering like a tall tree in a wind storm. After a moment she couldn't hear the cries of pain anymore. She walked over to pick up her unshattered drinking glass from the lawn, and then sloppily walked back inside of the one story cabin on the outskirts of town.
*****
Within the hour it was Twilight Sparkle that stood at her doorstep. Dash looked at her through a drunken haze.
“Rainbow Dash. Let me in. I need to talk to you.” Her voice was mostly level, although a bit strained.
“S' what if I shay no? Yer still gonna'.” Dash turned and staggered back to her futon, leaving the door open.
Twilight peered hesitantly into the gloom before cautiously stepping through the doorway. “How can you see in here? Here, let me fix this.” She looked toward the nearest window, and her horn began to glow as she focused intently at the shutters.
“Don't you use yer magic in here! If that's whats gonna happen then you can jus' get the hell out.” Dash was sitting on the futon posed to pour herself another glass from the bottle on the nearby table.
Twilight's eyes narrowed as she looked towards her friend, but she left the shutters closed.
“Scootaloo's got a bruised knot the size of a turtle on the top of her head, I thought you'd want to know. She said she just ran into a tree on her scooter, but I have my suspicions.”
Dash let her head lean back and she began to stare at the ceiling again. “Hey, don't you let me keep you from suspyzing anything you want.”
“Rainbow Dash, this is serious. She could have really been hurt. As it stands now she'll make a full recovery and be just fine physically, but the psychological damage will take a lot longer to heal than just a bruise. You're going to have to stop drinking and get yourself under control.”
“Drinking IS what keeps me under control. S' the only thing I can do to keep sane.” Dash's head leaned a bit toward the small kitchenette on the other side of the room.
“Rainbow, you're obviously having a lot of problems dealing with this. We're all your friends. Why don't you come talk to us. We haven't seen you around, and we're getting really worried that you-.”
Rainbow Dash cut her off with a loud snorting laugh. “Worried?! Over what? Over Fluttershy not being able to feel good about herself for giving charity to her wingless gimp 'friend'? Or that YOU won't be able to use me for a test subject in your failing medical experiments anymore? Or that Apple Jack won't get to have kinky amputee sex?”
Twilight's eyes shot open wide. “Wait, what? You and Apple …?”
“Yeah, yeah, s' not a surprise … well, I guess to any pony who knows what sex is, it wouldn't be a surprise. Actually … I sorta' didn't mind her using me for that part.” Dash took a long deep drink from her newly refilled glass and allowed herself to ignore the fact that she only just realized her face had gone numb.
“Rainbow Dash … this has to stop. You can't keep going on like this. You can't let one accident totally end your life like this.”
“Let me snap yer horn off, and then tell me you feel the same way. Then I can come over to yer house and tell you how you got s' much to live for. Oh, by the way, what's you cutie mark mean again? I fergot. Could ya' remind me?” The glare she shot at Twilight almost glowed in the darkened room.
Twilight just stared. Dash took a drink, and leaned back again. One minute turned into two, and then five, and the drunken blue pony was nearly off into dreamland when Twilight spoke again.
“It didn't fail”
Dash started awake at the sudden break of silence. “Wha-? Hurzza … wha? What're you do … ? Huh?”
“The experimental medical spell to replace your wings. It didn't fail.”
“Wha …? You mean the one you did back when I was in the hospital?”
“Yes. It worked but I must have screwed up the spell a bit, because it didn't work like it was supposed to.”
“Heh. Yeah, I'LL SAY! More like it never worked at all. Twilight, I'm the one who's drinking, and I know you're not making sense at all.”
“Dash listen, it DID work but in a different way than we thought it was going to.”
“Like hell, it did. I was supposed to grow my wings back and you-”
“Replace. It was supposed to replace your wings, not grow them back.”
“Like that makes any bit of difference now! Do I have wings? NO! Gone! Nothing left! See, the doctors even chopped out the bloody stumps!” She turned her back toward Twilight and moved close to let her get a good look at the jagged scars along her back. Twilight turned her head away from the embarrassing display.
“Yes, Dash, I know. I assisted with the magical spell to seal the wound.”
“OH! And a fine job you did with that! Couldn't even prevent all the ugly marks on my back.” She rounded to face the purple unicorn as she spat the accusation.
“We've been over this! The wounds had already been open for hours when we found you, I couldn't-” Twilight stopped and closed her eyes, taking a long deep breath in her mouth and out her nose. She opened her eyes and continued. “I'm trying to tell you that there's another way to get your wings back. Do you want to hear it or not?”
Dash blinked dumbly through the booze clouding her brain. “ … sure.”
*****
The next day the two ponies stood beneath the archway of the doors to the Canterlot Medical Facility. Twilight's horn gave a faint spark, and machines could be heard spinning into action somewhere behind the walls of the building. A loud click sounded at the opening of the doors, and Rainbow Dash followed her inside.
The unicorn led her companion down long hallways and up spiraling staircases, silently making a path through the building. It had been Twilight's insistence that, once inside, they have no conversation with each other. The last thing they needed was a passing staff member to hear about a top secret experimental medical spell that had gotten out of hand.
Rainbow Dash had questioned her incessantly about the specifics of the spell, but Twilight had only said that everything would be explained once they got there, after which she swore Dash to secrecy. Dash didn't understand why, but if it was going to help get her wings back then she was more than willing play along.
After a few minutes winding their way through the structure, they arrived at a door at the end of a dimly lit hallway on the top floor. It that led into a small room with couches lining the walls and a table in the center. On the opposite wall there was a large sturdy metal door with an old number placard in the center that read “Project 552”. Twilight once again magically opened the door, and they both entered.
“What … what is that?” Rainbow Dash stopped short the moment she passed the threshold of the metal door, and stood staring at the site that greeted her. In the center of the room sat a large mass of machinery, with various unicorns in lab coats lingering here and there, seemingly adjusting the thing. There were metal boxes with various colored lights lining one wall, and tall glass containers of greenish fluid hooked up to tubes that ran this way and that. Thick power cables snaked out along the floor like vines in a jungle, and various other clicking whirring mechanisms performed some undefined duty throughout the room. In the center of the mess, where all the tubes and wires met, was a much larger glass cylinder that stretched from floor to ceiling. It was filled with the green viscus liquid and, floating inside was a pony. “That pegasus looks like … she looks like ..”
“It's you, Rainbow Dash.” Princess Celestia stepped toward them from the far side of the room. Dash was so stunned that she almost forgot to bow. “Rise, subject. You and I have matters to attend to immediately.” She turned to the staff observing the machines. “Leave us for the moment. I will alert you if we require your aid again.” The unicorns promptly gathered a few scattered belongings and made their way out the door. “Yes, now then … Twilight Sparkle. Thank you for bringing her here. You may turn to stone now.”
“Yes, your majesty.” With that Twilight moved to face into the nearest corner, and stood quite still. Flesh became hard granite and hair turned to delicately carved marble, with her eyes becoming shining silver deposits of expert craftsmanship.
“What! What happened?” Rainbow Dash stared wide eyed toward Equestria's ruler.
“Have no fear, it's only temporary. I wanted you to have as much time as you needed here to make your decision, without any other pony influencing you.”
Rainbow Dash sputtered a little while looking back at Twilight Statue. She turned to the Princess with concern in her eyes. “Couldn't she just have waited out on the couches in the next room?”
“Yes, we could have done things that way, but that wasn’t what I wished to happen. She is my prize student, and she obeys my wishes. She has no choice.” The small smile that crept onto the Princess's face made Rainbow Dash involuntarily take a step back. The towering white goddess stepped toward her. “Are you afraid?”
Dash's eyes grew wide, and she started to shake her head before stopping and looking toward the ground. “I am. How could I not be?”
“This pleases me, subject. I'm glad that you would not lie to a being old enough to remember the birth of your race. No doubt you realize that I can read your very soul. Would you like to know what I see there?” Her smile grew sharper as she asked this.
“I … I don't … understand why I'm here now. Will I be able to fly again” The blue pegasus looked toward the cement floor as she spoke.
“Well, straight to business then. No idle chat, because Rainbow Dash has to get her wings back and practice drunken corkscrew maneuvers. Is that it? Then maybe you'll go over to your 'friend' Fluttershy's house and brood in a corner about how she never uses her own wings to fly higher than the tree tops? Or will you possibly continue being a braying jackass to one of the other ponies you used to consider a friend? Maybe the seamstress? I'm sure you could manage to seethe and brag about how much more shallow her dreams are compared to yours. You remember that dream of yours, right? The one that won't ever come true now. Tell me what it was, would you?” The Princess bent her head down and tilted an ear toward Rainbow Dash in anticipation of her answer.
Dash looked up at her. “Why are you doing this? You're supposed to help your subjects, not grind them into the dirt. I'd tell you what I really think right now, but I'm afraid of what you might do.”
The Princess stood silently for a moment, staring down at the rainbow maned pony, before speaking in a calm even tone. “It seems you have some bold opinions. Tell me, what do you think I should do to those who come into my home and presume to tell me, the Ruler of this kingdom, how I’m ‘supposed’ to behave towards my subjects? Perhaps I should break a drinking glass across their foreheads? Because that's how one is 'supposed' to act towards house guests, isn’t it?” Dash looked towards the ground again, clenching her eyes closed.
The Princess turned with a great sigh, and moved to the center of the room. She looked at the pony floating in the glass, and spoke softly, almost as if she had forgotten Dash was in the room. “I know what I'm supposed to do. I also know that when troubles are at their absolute worst, it is our friends that we need to rely on to pull us out of danger. I have found that, in this world, the most destructive forces come not from outside the walls. It is within our own selves that we face our greatest enemies.” She turned to look back at Rainbow Dash. “Reading through you now, I fear that you may have caused irreparable damage to yourself over the last several months. You, who carries the power of the element of Loyalty, have betrayed yourself. You have given up hope as to any improvement in your life, and, in doing so, you've also betrayed your friends.”
Dash was about to ask what she was talking about, when the Princess sensed her confusion and spoke again. “If you were to regain the power of flight, would it matter? Would Rainbow Dash be able to return, or would it be some other pony using her wings, some cruel heartless pony with no regard for what friendship means?”
Rainbow Dash was silent for a moment, her mouth partially open as she searched for something to say. Her throat felt very dry when she finally managed an answer. “I can try, at least.”
She approached Dash, her brows furrowed with concern. “My faithful student was never supposed to attempt to perform that spell. It was only recently developed, but she used it for your sake. The fact that you stand here now, means that she was out of options. She saw what's happening. Bringing you here was her last effort to try to regain what little may be left of the friend she knew. Will you be able to justify her efforts by simply 'trying'?"
Rainbow Dash once again found no words, and could only stare up at the Princess as she searched her own heart for some kind of answer.
The Princess returned her stare, and spoke after a few moment's silence. "Perhaps you still need to know the extent of the situation. Come and see the final result of my student's spell.”
Together they walked to the glass cylinder. Dash stood high on her hind legs and put her forelegs against the glass to get a better look inside. “Is that really me? Is it a copy?”
“She is. The spell was never supposed to generate a full clone, only the proper parts that would make a genetic match. Yes, she is alive, and, no, she can't see or hear you now. She is being held in a state of stasis.”
“Right after your accident, when you were still in the hospital here, Twilight cast that spell. It created a copy of the essence of everything that you were at that point. A physical structure was generated as if you had been just born, but a full and total copy of your personality and memories was transferred with the spell. She was still weak and would not have survived had she not been put into this life support chamber. Since then the life cycle has been accelerated until she reached your present day growth. She has grown strong enough to be able to move around outside of the machine, but she has not yet drawn breath. This is where your new wings will come from.”
Dash pushed herself away from the glass and moved to face Celestia. “You mean I would have those wings? Those in there? I would … would have mine back, but have to … I'd have to ...”
“Yes. You would have to deprive that pony of the joy of flight for the rest of her life. It might not be that bad actually. With a magical operation as harsh as that, her life may not last very long at all. In the off chance that she did survive, however, she would no doubt be as miserable as you are now. She IS you, after all. In fact, if you look at it a certain way, she's more of what 'Rainbow Dash' is supposed to be than you are now.”
The scarred pegasus lowered her face to the floor again. She was silent for a moment, before sitting down on the polished stone floor to look up at the occupant of the fluid filled container. “So you'd just release another 'Rainbow Dash' into the world, and a crippled one at that?” Her voice was casual as she looked sideways toward the Princess. “That doesn't really seem like the best of ideas. I can just imagine what you do to keep secrets in this place.”
The Princess's glance was one of slight disdain. “We are not in the habit of mercy killings. Her memories would be altered, and she would be sent off to live on one of the eastern islands, where no pony would recognize her.”
“Well, that's easy enough then. Just make her think that she's an earth pony, and problem solved! She would be happy to stay grounded.” Rainbow Dash clapped her fore hooves on the ground in front of her for emphasis.
“The closer the artificial memories are to the original, the better they will take hold. We COULD just wipe her mind all together and reassemble the pieces to make her a totally different set of memories, but that has proven to be very unreliable in the past. Regardless of memory alterations, the basic personality core tends to stubbornly remain unchanged by magic. She would still know deep down that she was made to fly, and she would suffer from that knowledge, just as you suffer now.” The Princess looked down at her subject.
Dash stared up again at herself in the green tube. The Princess allowed her a longer moment to ponder on the situation. When Dash finally spoke her voice was small and shaking. “What will happen to her if I don't take her wings? Will she stay here forever?”
Princess Celestia moved to sit by her side before answering. “Not forever. Nothing stays in the same place forever. She will be released. Some of her memories will be rewritten, and a coat recoloring will be in order, but she will be allowed to go out into the world to live her life. She could even keep her cutie mark. It's not that rare of a symbol, you know.”
Rainbow Dash looked up at her Princess with tears in her eyes. “That … that would be a shame to have to get rid of perfectly good memories about perfectly good adventures and … and perfectly good … very good friends. It … it wouldn't be fair to her … to ... to me, I mean, … since she's me, and all. I mean IF I were to just … just not take my wings back, but really, … how stupid would I be to do a thing like that.” Tears fell down more steadily, as she tried but was unable to say anything more.
“There, there.” The white alicorn reached a leg around her subject, and pulled her in for a tight embrace, allowing her to cry as long as she needed.
Eventually Rainbow Dash stopped crying, and moved to stand. Slowly she walked over to the machines keeping her other self alive, and looked up at her own face peacefully dreaming. She couldn't recall the last time she had slept that soundly. After a few moments she turned back to Princess Celestia, and announced her decision.
The Princess stood tall as she addressed the little blue pegasus. “Very well, my subject. Your choice is made. I hope that you will be able to live with it for the remainder of your days.” With that her horn began to glow. Its shine enveloped the room and blotted out everything in a flood of white light as bright as the sun.
*****
“Did you see? Did you see?!” Scootaloo grinned ear to ear as she flew towards her idol, who was reclining on a cloud nearby.
“Of course I did, Squirt. It's hard not to notice some pony ripping off some of my best signature moves.” Rainbow Dash chuckled as she flew over to meet the younger pegasus. “You keep that up, and you'll win the next Young Fliers Competition for sure.”
“Thanks so much, Dash. I couldn't have been able to do this without your help.” The orange pony blushed slightly as she zoomed in to hug her teacher.
“ACK! Hahaha! It was the least I could do for my biggest fan. Now knock off for a break. Grab some water, and be back here in fifteen minutes.” Scootaloo agreed and zoomed away, while Rainbow Dash flew down toward the pony she had spotted walking along the road.
“Hey, Twilight. What's up?” She slowed to a stop and landed a few feet away from her friend. She eyed the six pack of bottles poking out of the purple unicorn's saddle bags. “Getting ready for Pinkie's next big party? You know she always has everything you need already prepared.”
“Oh, I know. This isn't for the party. Just my own personal enjoyment.” She smiled at Dash as the pegasus stared at her for a moment.
“Twilight … you lush.” She grinned at her as she whispered the accusation in her ear.
“Hey! You're one to talk, after the last party we were at. I wasn't the one sloppily making out with the hostess before ruining the carpet.”
“Well, uh, heh HAHA oh, look at the time. Looks like I gotta go.” She began to fly up into the sky before stopping abruptly and returning to the ground. “Heh. I almost forgot why I stopped to talk to you in the first place. Are you still going to be able to help me out next week with … you know, the doctors.” Dash scratched the back of her head in embarrassment.
“Of course. I made sure the day was clear and open for your annual check-up. I mean, not that you could even get into the place without me, since you don't have top secret clearance keys. Still, even if you did, it would be pretty boring going alone. And besides, what are friends for?”
“Thanks Twilight. That place, well … it always makes me uneasy.” Her smile faded a little as she looked sideways toward the ground. Neither of them said anything for a moment, before Twilight chimed in.
“By the way, how are your wings feeling? Are they performing alright? No sudden pains or spasms or lockups?”
Dash's smile returned as she answered. “Nope. They're just as good as new, which is to be expected from Celestia's magic.”
“Yup. That's why she is who she is.” Twilight's teeth clenched at the end of the statement, as her own grin grew broader.
Scootaloo zipped down from the clouds and shouted to the ponies. “Hi Twilight! Rainbow Dash is teaching me how to slack off when I'm supposed to be teaching a younger pony how to do awesome flying tricks.”
“YOU! You get up there, and I'll really show you some stuff. It'll make your head spin right off your shoulders.” She started up toward Scootaloo, who stuck her tongue out and soared into the clouds. Then she stopped and turned to Twilight. “Thanks again, Twilight. I'll stop by later to help you polish off some of those bottles.”
“Hey, these are mine!”
“No pony should drink alone. Later Twilight.” She streaked though the clouds after her protege, leaving Twilight staring up at the bright blue sky. It was so vividly beautiful that, as she stared up, she neglected to notice her eyes beginning to water under the brightness of the afternoon sun.
*****
Somewhere off the eastern coast of Equestria, sitting alone on a deserted beach, a wingless pegasus stared out at the crystal blue horizon. She took a long drink from the bottle cradled between her legs, and gazed up into the cloudless sky. As the day wore on, her shadow was cast long over the sands, until it was swallowed completely in the approaching sea of dusk. She counted the stars as they appeared in the blanket of night overhead, and allowed a jealous tear for each.
