Red Letter Day

Drip, drip, drip.

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes, but she couldn't see. She could hear the steady drip of water as it splashed into the puddle she was lying in and could feel the chills sending shivers up her flank, but her eyes could do nothing to pierce the void. She was either blind, or it was very, very dark. Instinctively, she flexed her wings. FIRE. Rainbow Dash was no stranger to the occasional wing sprains that came with the territory of being a weatherpony, and she even shrugged off a hairline fracture incurred in the obstacle course at the Wonderbolts Academy, but this was a brand of pain she didn't know existed. Her wings weren't just broken, they were mangled. As the agony in her wings ran down into her spine the shivers turned into convulsions. She flailed her legs and bucked wildly, bruising her hinds on the chain that shackled her to a rusty pipe. It took a good minute of thrashing before the pain in her wings had subsided enough for her to realize the chains were even there. Terrified, exasperated, and utterly broken, Rainbow tried to scream only to find that despite lying in a pool of water, her throat was bone dry. The best she could muster was a hoarse, sputtering whinny.

Drip, drip, drip.

“How in the name of sweet Celestia did I end up here?” she asked herself, when she had regained enough of her strength to form coherent thoughts. One moment, she was barreling down the home stretch of the Wonderbolts Academy racetrack, and the next everything cut to black, only to wake up freezing, crippled, and chained to a pipe. Try as she might, she couldn't remember anything in between. In her mind she ran through the last few minutes she could remember over and over to see if she may have missed any peculiar details that could offer her clues as to what exactly happened. It was late in the evening, and she was flying a routine practice race, just like all the other routine practice races she flew at the Wonderbolts Academy, and just like all the other practice races before, she was winning. Rainbow's heart sank as she remembered the feeling of her illustrious wings beating through the sea of deep purple that moonless night, wings that now hung lame, throbbing in torturous pain.

“Wait a minute,” she realized. “It was a moonless night. Moonless because Princess Luna hadn't raised the moon yet!” Dash's memory snapped to the pre-flight briefing when Spitfire told her and her fellow cadets that Princess Luna would be stopping by before her nightly ascension to observe the training exercises that evening. She remembered picking up a hint of distaste in Spitfire's voice at the mention of Princess Luna. It was no secret that Spitfire was a war veteran with many dogfights against the Shadowbolts under her belt. After all, it was she and Soarin who were the most outspoken against Princess Celestia's orders to merge the Shadowbolts into the fold of the Equestrian Royal Wing Command during the reunification. Today the top brass at the Wonderbolts Academy no longer dared to openly question Princess Luna's loyalty, but the murmurings of distrust persisted in the barracks, the mess hall, and even the officers' lounge.

Drip, drip, drip.

Dash didn't make much of Luna observing the race at the time. She had seen the princess many times before, and, as a bearer of the elements of harmony, she was certain she would be seeing her quite a bit in the future. Dash slumped against the rusty pole she was chained to, no longer so sure of the certainty she once took for granted. She could remember that Luna was there, but she couldn't remember anything else out of the ordinary. Truth be told, she was much more focused on the race. Oh, she always won, sure, but each time she flew she tried to cut her finishing time shorter and shorter. She remembered how hard it was for her to pull off a sonic rainboom before her acceptance into the Wonderbolts Academy; the rainboom was a feat of raw power and speed that required weeks of prep time followed by at least another week of burnout to recuperate. At the Wonderbolts Academy, her flying had improved to such a degree that rainbooming during a race had become standard. Dash cracked a weak smile when she remembered the look on Spitfire's face the first time she rainboomed in basic training. It lifted her spirits to re-live the victory lap she took in front of her fellow cadets, their mouths agape in disbelief. The sonic rainboom was the stuff of legend, and as far as her commanding officers knew, Rainbow Dash was the only Pegasus alive with the skill to pull one off. Dash held onto the happy memory for as long as she could in the dark, wet cold.

Drip, drip, drip.

Dash was jarred out of her recollection when she heard a noise. Not the constant dripping noise she was used to, but a voice. It was faint at first, but it grew louder as Dash guessed its source got closer.

“Tralalala-la, tralalala-la, ah ah ah ah aaaaaaaaaaaaahh.” The voice grew louder still, and Dash seized up in terror, deeply disturbed by its unnaturally hollow timbre, and terrified at the prospect of what its owner might have in store for her.

TRALALALA-LA, TRALALALA-LA, AH AH AH AH AAAAAAAAAH. The voice was only a few feet away now, but still muffled enough to give Dash the impression it was coming from behind a wall. All of a sudden, she heard the turn of a tumbler and was bathed in light. Now, usually when somepony is in the dark and a light comes on, it takes a while for his or her eyes to adjust to the light. The light in Rainbow Dash's eyes, however, was so dim that the transition didn't take long at all. She could see almost at once that she was being held captive in a room: a fetid, foul, filthy room the likes of which she could not have previously conceived. She guessed it was a basement, as it had a dirt floor littered with all sorts of rubbish nopony would think to keep in any sort of proper living quarters. The light came from a doorway, which was occupied by the shadowy figure that opened it. Dash tried to make out who or what was in the door, but all she could see was its ghastly silhouette. Dash's heart was pounding in her chest, pumping adrenaline through her veins to prepare her body for the fight or flight her mind knew she would not be granted. The voice, no longer muffled but far from clear, spoke once more. In all of it's hollow, slurry, unsettling glory it asked,

“Hey. Hey PONY. Do you want a pizza roll? I got some pizza rolls here, tell me, do you want a pizza roll?”

Drip, drip, drip.