Ashes and Dust

There were many changes that had occurred since Equestria's destruction, the latest of which was the interesting fact that I no longer dreamed. There really didn't seem to be any reason to anymore now that I had this giant chamber full of latent memories that Luna had given me access to. The task of discovering the information hidden within my own memories seemed much more daunting when I was all alone in here.

I once again found myself pulled into this dreamscape, and despite the fact that I had seen Luna sacrifice herself to protect me from the cold clutches of death, a part of me couldn't help but call out to her, hoping that somehow I would receive a response. Maybe there was a slim chance she had survived. What if I simply couldn't sense her presence here because of how weak she was after the previous encounter with the darkness?

"Luna?" I cried out desperately.

There was no response except the chamber of my memories echoing the name throughout my mind. The darkest recesses of this place seemed to scream her name back at me, as though blaming me for her demise. Being here had once given me a sense of wonder, but now I only felt alone and afraid. I looked at the orbs for answers to my fears, the memories floated around peacefully orbiting some object in the center, seeming completely oblivious to my current predicament.

Like the orbs I needed to calm down, I was here with a mission that needed to be accomplished before I woke up and I couldn't do that if I just cried and gave up. I would push forward, no matter how much I missed her. Luna had once told me that these memories held the key to something important, but I had no idea where to begin.

I am far more attentive to them than you are.

Sigh...

The room had apparently been renovated after it had flooded the day before thanks to Twilight's foolish rescue attempt. Now, for whatever reason, the place appeared to be furnished similar to a large chapel. The mosaics were portraits of my friends and I, the same ones in Canterlot. Or rather, the ones that used to be in Canterlot. The faint light from whatever was beyond the room, my untamed subconsciousness I suppose, glowed through them and reflected off of all the memory orbs that floated around in slow orbits. The light danced around the chapel-like room.

It was pretty in a way, almost poetic.

I trotted over to the podium and stood behind it, glancing at the mesmerizing way the tiny baubles floated around. It was surreal watching my own mind. As I stood in awe a memory floated over and brushed against my head.

The storm was churning with lethal intent as her hooves bent the forces of nature to her will. The power she was infused with was immense.

How is my host doing? Enjoying the show?

I tried to ignore him, he had been goading me several times since he took control. Each time a little part of me broke.

I understand that this is your home. Surely you want this to stop?

I wouldn't give him the satisfaction this time. He would only make it worse. I had to be strong, resist his influence, and be there to beat him with the rest of my friends as soon as I broke free.

Just ask me to stop. If you truly want to save those that squalor in their ignorance, your kin, then beg for their lives.

I can't fall for his tricks. He'll just use any opportunity to talk to make me hurt more.

Nothing? How very heartless as to not say a word in their defense.

You won't listen to me. Dammit.

Try me mortal. Beg for those you love.

I mentally swallowed my pride.

Please don't kill them. Please don't do this. Please...

No.

Lightning began to strike homes below as the wind swept at speeds that could strip a wing of its feathers. My body remained untouched in his control. I could see rain part magically around raging infernos. A grin grew on my face that sickened me to my core. Black magics dripped off of me like tar and dissipated into the clouds.

All of Celestia's chosen children will die. This is the punishment for leaving me to an eternity of torment.

He screamed something in my voice incoherent to me as I mentally cringed. Soon he took me with him into a dive. A crackle of color mixed with onyx burst around me as we as we got closer and closer to the ground. Then before my very eyes he did something that had until my lifetime only been considered a legend, something I prided myself as the only pegasus to ever be capable of.

The explosion seemed to rip apart reality as large gouges formed in the earth. Chunks of dirt and what little remained of nearby houses were still falling as he drifted us up to a distance above to observe what he had wrought.

He had used my talent as a tool to kill all but a few choice survivors which he locked onto with glee.

I had hardly said a dozen words to him this time, but just as before it was pointless. I broke a little more.

My eyes tightened and I bit my lower lip, holding back tears. My heart pounding against my chest as I slowly slid to the floor next to the podium. I curled up and wept. I moaned and choked in sadness, calling out Luna's name, and Twilight's name, even Lyra's name. There was no answer to be found in the recess of my mind.

So I laid there completely alone until the crying stopped, the tears dried against my face, and I could breathe steadily once more.

Come on Rainbow, pull yourself together. You just need to stay away from all the bad memories obviously. What did Luna say about the memories again? What do I need?

I focused on what I knew and words in phrases leaped at me from the orbs.

Twilight and Celestia are alike in that way...

She is afraid of herself.

Ugh... It would be so much easier if she just told me. Why in Equestria is Twilight's future so bleak? Can't be much worse than what already happened, could it? Maybe if I just focus on Twilight then...

CLONK

I fell over grasping my head, glaring at a orb rolling slowly around my hooves. The orb that had just hit me.

I frowned. What the heck? I looked around. Behind me by a few feet was one of the most beautiful things I had seen in awhile.

"LUNA!"

I ran and jumped to hug her, rolled the both of us to the ground. Perhaps a bit "undignified", but Rarity wasn't here to tell me different.

Luna chuckled for a moment before pushing me gently off of her. I had barely gotten back up before I started asking questions.

"I thought you were dead, what happened?"

Luna stood as well, her stature shorter than I remember. She was also...

Her sad look upwards made me frown.

"Where is your horn?"

Luna sighed. "Gone I suppose. I gave the entirety of my magic to you in order to save your life. As a part of my magical connection to the world, my horn appears to have been stripped from me. As for me still being alive, I was barely alive in any sense to begin with. Its more that my soul is connected to your subconsciousness and I have unlocked the part of your brain that lets you think within that space. I expected the connection to be severed at any rate due to the magnitude of what I was attempting to do."

My face dropped. "You did that for me? But without your magic how will you..."

Luna looked slightly amused. "Well technically, you are now the sovereign of the moon. I have no power there anymore."

I looked at my hooves as they shook. "I... uh... don't... what?"

Luna rolled her eyes with a chuckle. "Don't worry, the moon will behave itself without your interference for quite some time."

I thought for a bit. "Was it you that cast a spell that saved the sun and moon earlier when Twilight and I were in the forest?"

"Yes. I cast the spell through you - surprisingly easy, considering you are a pegasus, but that could be attributed to your innate connection to the Element of Loyalty. Now however, I imagine that your pegasus magic will grow drastically, compounding upon your immortal strength. I am not entirely sure what all of the side effects will be but..."

"I'm not the Element of Loyalty anymore. I actually broke the thing."

Luna smirked. Why was she...? "You broke one of the most powerful magical artifacts in Equestria by accident? Somehow I doubt the possibility of that, regardless of what Twilight showed you."

I frowned for multiple reasons. "First off, I'd appreciate it if you restrained your memory reading to stuff that has to do with the what's going on now." No need for Luna to be seeing my fantasies at night or anything. "And I saw the Element myself. It is broken."

She seemed lost in thought the moment before she spoke. "Perhaps, all shall be revealed in time. And I think it might be too late for that first one - I accidentally stumbled upon something strange during a night after..."

I couldn't hear the rest of her sentence because I was rolling around screaming. It took several minutes for Luna to tell me she was joking before I calmed down: whether or not she told me the truth was debatable, but I couldn't deal with that on top of everything else. Honestly, I couldn't deal with everything else by itself.

She stood next to me and rolled the orb that had hit me - presumably she threw it for whatever reason - and spoke softly.

"You'll figure it all out in due time Rainbow Dash. I knew the consequences of my actions. You have the power of an immortal now, and I have selected you to champion me in a desperate gamble for this world. Are you up to the challenge?"

What else could I say? I mustered what confidence I had. "Yes."

Luna smirked. "Then we play the game of my sister. This creature, from whatever depths of Tartarus it crawled out of, will not expect you to come back fighting."

I lifted my head. "Do we have a chance of winning?"

Luna gave me a look of daring. "Since when does that keep you from trying?"

She nudged the small orb again.

I picked it up and rolled it in my hooves. It was perfectly clear, and barely the size of a inkwell.

Well, at least that meant it wasn't a horrible memory, those were the big ones, right?

I felt the smooth surface of the orb, holding it gently as I thought about entering the memory, or dream... whatever I'm supposed to call it. As I stared, it started shining, dim at first, but slowly getting brighter. I almost dropped it in surprise, but it was stuck to my hooves. I couldn't let go. Little by little the light grew brighter and soon seemed to blur the rest of the room as it encompassed my vision. The white covered everything until I was blinded in the eternal void of white. It was so cold, and so furiously bright, as though it was fighting to light itself brighter until my retinas burned and my eyes watered. I couldn't even see my own self through the burning, fiery light that had melted the world into a senseless empty of only the light. I thought I might go mad looking into the white until I saw a pair of shimmering purple eyes glaring though the light and into mine.

Then I knew I was mad.

I tried to move, but I was frozen. The white blur of the light began to focus like a camera, the world ebbing into existence around me. Trees grew around the purple eyes and earth rolled beneath them. Blue was poured into the canvas of the sky, specks of white lingering from the light as stars.

Then she formed fully. The eyes burst with color and filled the outline of her alicorn body. She was... fine. Healed. Normal.

She was Twilight.

I smiled sadly, immediately thinking about the injuries she sustained due to my actions. Celestia, I was miserable wasn't I?

"No, of course not."

What? I stopped dead, and looked at Twilight. She had just spoken to me! I was about to respond when I heard another voice.

"Well since there are no objections, we can begin flying lessons tomorrow!"

My voice. I felt myself smirk, and noticed my own rainbow mane in my peripheral, and came to the realization that I was in a memory, and she was talking to my memory. I stopped attempting to perform actions and let the memory unfold. I watched through my own eyes as I began to turn towards my cloud home when she called to me.

"Hey Rainbow?"

I slowly spun on my hooves, and looked back at her pensively, as she shyly shrunk back.

"What Twilight?"

She looked at me with a nervous glance and quietly asked, "You would never think differently of me if I was different would you?"

I was about to laugh in response to such a silly question, but I - in a startling display of tact - responded seriously.

"Of course not Twilight. I didn't think any differently when you got wings did I? Why do you ask?"

She shrugged, avoiding the question quite obviously. I sighed and simply let it go. For now.

"Goodnight Twilight."

She smiled. "Goodnight Rainbow."

Then my eyes opened to a dull grey and brown world. I mentally rolled my eyes. Luna runs me through some random memory, and then throws me back into the world where I could use the information from said memory without letting me think about it. Nice to know nothing has changed.

"Ugh... Stupid brain."

My voice seemed to get a response from the room. I heard some soft scuffles of hooves on rock and a couple voices start talking. I'd listen if my head wasn't throbbing so much. Then somepony shook me and my eyes were greeted by a minty green pony.

"Hellooooooo? You in there Rainbow Dash?"

She had such a look on her face of concern, but also suppressed embarrassment.

"Yeah, I'm here."

"THEN TELL THEM CRAZY MARES TO LET ME GO! GAHHHHHH!"

A sudden yell broke the silence and Lyra helped me up. Lyra looked at me before turning me towards the yelling pony, who was hogtied and had only just managed to get the bit out of his mouth.

"Oh, hey Lucky."

Lyra looked me in the eyes with curiosity obvious in her face, "You actually know him?"

"I TOLD YOU A MILLION 'EFFING TIMES!" Lucky yelled, before rolling over onto his face and saying obscenities into the blanket he landed on, which muffled him.

"Yeah," I said. I took a moment to take in my surrounding while Lyra rolled her eyes and walked over to untie Lucky. We appeared to be in a cave with a small opening to my left, my back against the wall where the blankets, presumably for sleeping on, lay. Across the cave on the opposite wall was Lucky, being untied in his little area by Lyra. There was a campfire that wasn't lit in the center, and in the back of the cave was a large, flat stone upon which were some papers and a few bottles of water. Two saddlebags with packs attached lay next to it on the cave floor, easily recognizable as Twilight's and Lyra's. Then finally there was Twilight.

Many complicated emotions ran through me as I glanced at the lavender mare with large scabs covering her severed limbs and other, fresher, wounds coating her body. I wanted to ask her why she caused such violence in her red rage, but fear stayed my voice. I wanted to know the reason behind her own fear, but caution kept me silent. I...

I concern myself mostly with myself don't I?

I trotted slowly over to Twilight, noting the wary glance she gave me as I approached. Could she be mad at me? Most likely. Nearing her as one would an armed explosive, I asked quietly, "How are you Twilight?"

She looked at me curiously, taken aback. Then her brow furrowed and she stood from the rock that acted as her chair.

"Disappointed. What kind of idiocy does it take to leave in the middle of a dangerous forest while being chased by goddess-like forces? And leave us behind to chase after you like fillies, not to mention what we did to the prison we just rescued you from!"

She seemed mad, but very thinly so. More like she was scolding a rowdy foal than berating her friend from getting captured. The whole situation made me chuckle, a murderer and a bomb-maker saved from a corrupt goddess by another goddess's protege and some bar-mare. I was instantly reminded of the utterly ridiculous plots from Daring Do novels. So I broke out in stupid, shock filled laughter.

At first Lyra looked at me like I was nuts, along with Twilight, but soon they were both chuckling along with me. I rolled around on the floor, and rolled into Lyra's legs, who toppled onto me. Soon we were laughing out our emotions.

Lucky looked petrified. "The hell is so funny? C'mon? You mares still got brains or should I just bolt?"

Twilight smirked lightly as the laughter toned to smiles. "Never do that again Rainbow. You swore to help me with this, whatever may come."

I nodded back at her.

"I take it that you are alright then, RD?"

I blew Lyra's mane out from my eyes and shoved her off me playfully. "Yeah, ya know. I'm the best, what could hurt me? So this, my fine mares, is Lucky!" I gestured to the green pony standing a few hooves away.

He was not amused. "Why can't someponies be a little more trusting? Do I look like a villain or something?" He looked at his hooves.

Lyra chuckled as she stood. "Of course not, we just don't really trust anypony when we have this whole secret mission thing to do." She pause for a moment and thought. "Does this mean that you are the fourth? I figured the fourth would have the radio, and you don't have anything on you, I searched pretty thoroughly."

Lucky muttered an upset, "Don't I know it."

Twilight opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again to speak. "Listening ahead is not good for anypony Lyra, and just confuses the buck out of the rest of us."

Lyra shrugged unconcernedly. "Well Lucky?"

"I mean, yeah. But it's all the way in Stalliongrad, back at my place. It's a useless piece of junk, only plays like three songs. And pushing the alternate mode just makes it say, 'Please insert horn and transfer memo...' "

He would have continued had he not been surrounded by a violet aura and levitated upside-down. I turned to Twilight, who looked livid.

"Lyra, you are now banned from any and all questions. Lucky, you are no longer allowed to talk about anything pertaining to the radio, any knowledge of the radio, or anything regarding said radio. Do I make myself clear?"

"Am I really banned from questions?"

Twilight dropped Lucky - "Oi!" - and turned to Lyra with a frown. "Should I let you continue to join in our quest?"

A shrug. "Eh, fair enough. I'll limit, but if it's important, I'm asking."

"Really Lyra?" I said in a lower voice as Twilight helped Lucky to his hooves, "That's it?"

I got a sad glance. "I'm trying to get back on her good side. I saw her bad side on the way here, it's not pretty."

I flapped my wings and ruffled Lucky's mane. "Anyways, Lucky here helped me out in the prison. Lucky, this is Twilight Sparkle and Lyra Heartstrings. They're my entourage." I said with bravado.

Lucky seemed displeased. "So I'm the only stallion? How long did the last one live?"

Twilight walked back to her table and started sorting things back into her saddlebags as Lyra rolled up the blankets laid around the floor with her magic. Lucky and I just watched as the two magic-users got travel ready within a minute.

Twilight looked at us both before putting a saddlebag on Lucky and I. She left the mouth of the cave and into the dark night. Lyra soon followed. Lucky turned to me and whispered, "Why is the messed up one so pissy? She fight a manticore and lose or somethin'?"

I looked at him sadly. "No, that was me."

All because of you. Worthless.

I ground my teeth as he recoiled a bit, then looked at me with much more scrutiny. Lucky seemed to chose his words carefully before speaking. "Your life always like this?"

"Recently... yes."

"Huh. Can we talk about the whole prison break thing, and the explosions? 'Cause that isn't normal to me. Well, I suppose the explosion bit is..."

I sighed. "Yeah, and I'll have to, like, triple thank them for that too."

"So where are we going now?"

I looked out the cave, to where Twilight was talking with Lyra. "With them, and probably to the ends of the Equestria. But right now, I think we will just be traveling to Stalliongrad."

We slowly trotted towards the mouth of the cave. "Why there?"

"Oh, same reason I told you I was going to go, looking for the mysterious black market bomb maker."

He frowned. "I told ya I was the pony you were lookin' for."

I smiled. "Yeah. I know."

Lucky gave a blank stare. "I can honestly say that I understand less than I did two weeks ago about the world."

I rolled my eyes. "Listen." I started lowering my voice to a whisper, just in case. "There is this whole thing going on here with Lyra and Twilight knowing a lot more about this whole situation than I do. Give me a day or two to get them talking and figure out what I'm supposed to do. Twilight needs me for something..."

"She certainly needs something alright."

"...and I don't know what I need to do yet, but it involves the damn radios. I need you to hide yours when we reach your place and get it to me without Twilight or Lyra finding out. Alright?"

Lucky didn't really look thrilled at my idea, but he nodded after a few moments. "You're the boss around here far as I'm concerned. Between my brains and your brawn, we got this made."

Huh? "Wait, your the brains?"

"Well, listen here, I got to have something going for me right? Twilight's got the magics, Lyra is your girlfriend, and after seeing you beat the shit outta Braeburn you must be the brawn. What else is left for me?"

I.. uh...

"Lyra is not my girlfriend!"