//------------------------------// // The Origin of Darkwing Pony // Story: Rainbow Dash and the Darkwing Pony // by ThomasZoey3000 //------------------------------// Chapter 5: The Origin of Darkwing Pony As ponies began making their way to their homes for the night, and the Ponyville police force were getting themselves ready for increased secruity work that evening, the masked pony known as Darkwing was flying about, looking for any kind of criminal activity. Even suspicious looking ponies would not go unnoticed. Though as he flew, he was thinking back to the previous night, "I wonder if she's figured it out by now." His thoughts were soon interupted when he saw a group of ponies walking out of the Everfree Forest. "More of them? Geez, he's really not taking any chances tonight." Then he noticed two of the ponies looked more suspicious than usual. He flew down and hid in one of the nearby trees to listen as they talked. "Remember you two, your job is to find that pegasus pony from last night and see if she has a connection with the Darkwing," said one of the Earth ponies in the group. "We're aware of our jobs you idiot, the boss did tell us earlier of what we have to do," said one of the two pegasi. "At least we can do our job with ease, unlike you losers. You can't even commit a robbery without getting your flanks whooped by him again." "Hey, I told you, he took me by surprise back in Vanhoover." "Yeah, and the boss had to break you out, risking our position in Vanhoover. If you ask me, he should've..." "Shut you you fools!" snapped the second pegasus. "You keep yelling like that, and we'll be letting all of Ponyville know we're out and about. Now, let's just get out there and do our jobs, and this time, don't fail. The boss is already peeved enough over the stupidity of those idiots in jail." On that note, the ponies split up. Ten went into town while the two pegasi flew off into the air. "So you're going to try and go after Rainbow huh? We'll see about that, I just hope the police can handle the criminals without my help for a little while." He extended his wings and took off from the tree, chasing after the pegasi without them even knowing he was there. In town, Silver Badge was giving one last talk to his officers, "remember boys and girls, we've been letting Ponyville down for three nights in a row with three failed robberies. Tonight, if you spot any suspicious activity, try and put a stop to it, but if they are already going ahead with their robbery, do your best to stop them." "Is that why we're in teams of four?" asked one officer. "That's correct. If it comes to that, three of you are to engage the criminals while the fourth one goes for back-up. I do not want a repeat performance of last night, am I clear on this one?" All the other officers nodded, "good. I want to assure the ponies of this town that we can protect them, and maybe get the mayor off our backs." "Sir, what about Darkwing?" asked a second officer, "what if he shows up and fights the criminals?" "I still want to question him, as do many officers around Equestria, so see if you can, get him to go with you to the station." "And if not?" "Then arrest him too, cause that's going to be considered resisting arrest." "As you wish Sir." "Now let's get out there officers, and let's show these criminals that you don't mess with our town!" And on that note, the officers split up into groups of four. Despite the warning she had gotten from Silver Badge, Rainbow Dash flew out of her house and headed over to Ponyville. This time however, she wasn't going to sit on rooftops waiting for Darkwing to show up, she brought along a cloud to rest on. "I just have to know what could've caused my cheerful and loyal friend to go from the life he had, to the life he has now," she thought to herself. "And more importantly, why he would dress up like Mare Do Well's brother." Not too far off, the pegasus spies were scanning the skies for any sign of another pegasus. "She's got to be out here tonight, right?" asked the first pegasus. "Duh, of course she'll be out tonight. You know ponies like her, they have the desire to break the rules while looking for trouble." The second pegasus spy chuckled, "noble fools like her are so stupid." "Yeah, they're all pretty stupid." "Oh I wouldn't be so sure about that," said a voice from behind them. Both pegasi spun round, but found nothing there. They shrugged it off, thinking they were imagining things, that was until they heard, "I'm afraid I can't let you harm that pony either." They looked forwards again, but found nothing in front of them "Okay, this is getting creepy," said the first pegasus spy. Suddenly, the two of them found themselves engulfed in a cloud, and before they could do anything else, they found themselves in a fight. They were punched, kicked and smacked hard until they were knocked out, and tied up. "Sorry, but like all ponies, I will protect this one from jokers like you." He took them over to a tree and tied one end of his rope to it, leaving the two pegasi dangling like yo-yos. "Love to stay and chat, but I got other business to attend to, so excuse me." Darkwing extended his wings and took off into the sky once more. "Do you really think the Darkwing is as good as everypony says he is?" asked one officer with Silver Badge. "I mean, he knows karate and he's a master of the shadows." "He's just a pony like anypony around here," said Silver Badge firmly. "Yeah, but he also has cool pieces like rope launchers and even smoke bombs. And reading the reports Sir, some of the ponies he beat up never even heard him coming, it's like he walks on air." "Well he is a pegasus, so it's easy for him," said a second officer. Silver Badge groaned, "look, we're on a patrol tonight, not gossip corner, now please be quiet and focus." They did go quiet, and no sooner had they done that, then they heard some chatter in the distance. The third officer in the group heard it, and pointed in the direction it was coming from. Silver Badge and the other two officers followed the voices until they were nearly caught up to them. It wasn't any of the other officers, it was a group of criminals, and many had bags full of equipment for stealing things. "Stop right there!" shouted Silver Badge. The criminals jumped and looked behind them. They were surprised to find themselves being confronted by police, "I told you to shut up, but would you listen to me? No you didn't." "Oh shut up!" snapped the second criminal. "Drop your equipment and got down on your knees, you're under arrest!" Silver Badge shouted firmly. "Oh yeah, make us!" snapped the first criminal. A third criminal looked behind them and saw another group of officers walking over, and they looked firm, "uh guys, maybe we should do as they say, we're kind of surronded." "No way!" snapped the first criminal, "if we're going down, we're going down fighting." Right at that moment, Rainbow Dash reached the area. Her cloud blended in nicely with other clouds, so she wouldn't get spotted. "A fight's going to break out huh? Well let's see how they do, and if they need help, I'll get in there." But then she smacked herself on the face, "get a grip Rainbow, you're suppose to be in hiding, not fighting." "Hey, did you hear something?" asked one of the officers down below. Rainbow Dash covered her mouth and didn't move an inch. "Huh, maybe it was my imagination." Rainbow sighed and watched on as the officers went into a fight with the criminals. As they fought, she could see more criminals heading for the same jewelry store from two nights ago. "Darkwing's bound to go after one of them," Rainbow thought to herself. "But where is he?" She didn't see that he landed above her. He had landed on a cloud after spotting her. He shook his head, and moments later, pulled up a rope launcher. He aimed it and fired the sharp end of his launcher at the cloud. It caught the cloud and slowly pulled Rainbow up. "Huh? Wha..." she looked behind her and saw the rope. She then looked up and saw what was causing her to float upwards. Darkwing placed a hoof in front of his mouth as if to say 'Shh'. She nodded and stayed as quiet as she could. Luckily, the robbery wouldn't happen as another group of officers caught the criminals, and engaged them in another fight. Once high enough, Darkwing retracted his rope launcher, "you know you're lucky I'm keeping a good eye open, two pegasus spies were coming after you, and those officers wouldn't have been fooled by your cloud, you would've been spotted." "Hey, I had to try something," said Rainbow. "Yeah well next time, stay high above the ground so you won't get spotted." "Oh yeah, and who made you an expert all of the sudden?" Rainbow snapped, but then she had to giggle. "And you say I haven't changed a bit. Here we are arguing over what's good or not, eh Lightwing?" Darkwing smiled, "so you have figured it out. I knew you would." He sighed and looked all around, just to be make sure they weren't being watched, "it is good to see you again Rainbow Dash, it's been too long." "Yeah, we haven't spoken since I left for Ponyville. Sorry I haven't been able to keep in contact with you." "It's fine, besides you wouldn't have been able to keep in contact with me, cause it was after you left that things took a bad turn." Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at this, "a bad turn? What do you mean by that?" Darkwing looked all around, then sat down in front of Rainbow, "what I'm about to tell you, I've never told anypony before. You are the first and the only one to ever know the truth about my life." "Well I'm honored I guess." Darkwing sighed once more and began, "well as you remember, we first met back at the Junior Speedster Flight Camp when we were only kids. Back then, I didn't really have much skill in flying, so one day, as I was trying to fly, you came along and offered to give me some advice. It really helped me in becoming the flyer I am today, and from that point onwards, we became good friends. Even after we left, we kept in touch and hang out whenever we could. There were also times when one of us would stand up for the other one aganist those bullies." Rainbow nodded, remembering all that very well. "Well after you left for Ponyville, that's when the trouble began for me. Do you remember when we were in flight camp and we had another bully picking on us?" "Yeah, that big chubby one? What was his name again? I can't seem to remember it." "It was Inferno." "Oh yes, I remember him now. He really wasn't a very nice pony." "Yeah well he's still not a very nice pony. Shortly before you left, he took over his father's business, which was to be a crime lord. After you left Cloudsdale, he ordered many of his own minions to steal from the city of Cloudsdale, and anypony that got in his way would be taught a very nasty lesson, some were more brutal than others." "And that's why you wear a mask, it's to hide your damaged face and allow you to get back at him through a different idenity?" Darkwing shook his head, "if only it were that simple, but that's not it Rainbow. Besides, that's the kind of thing that happened in those old Western comic books we read when we were kids." "Oh yeah, I guess you got a point. Sorry for jumping to conclusions." Darkwing looked around once again, then turned his attention back to Rainbow, "it's fine Rainbow, don't worry about it. Anyways, Inferno also used innocent ponies to keep himself and his gang out of trouble, don't ask me how he does it, he just does. Many ponies ended up either going to jail, or become the outcasts in their communities. Myself, I was one of them." "One evening, we had a prized jewel visit from a town from the other side of the world. Once he got word of it, Inferno ordered his minions to steal it. They were successful, but they left something behind to shift the blame elsewhere, a feather with my DNA on it." "How did they get one of your feathers?" Rainbow interupted. "It's not like a pony can just take feathers from another pony." "Well feathers do fall off from time to time, so that's probably how they got it." Darkwing looked around again, then continued, "the police soon came to my door and arrested me. I was put on trail a few days later, and tried to defend myself. I even stated that I was hanging out with another friend when the robbery occured, but that Inferno managed to get the pony to change their statement and say I wasn't with them. With everything pointing at me, they found me guilty and had me locked up for a solid year." "When I finally got out, I became an outcast of the neighbourhood, and every now and then, the police would keep coming over to see if they could find the jewel, but of course they would never find it at my house. I tried again and again after that to show I wasn't guilty, but Inferno was always one step ahead of me and managed to convince all of Cloudsdale I was a no good liar. To add on top of it, he managed to make it look like I was the one responsible for many more crimes to follow after that. Seemed I was their favourite target. Soon, nopony would listen to me or talk to me. It made me feel alone and miserable." Down below, the officers had managed to round up all but one of the criminals. The last one had managed to get back into the Everfree Forest and disappear from their sights. "Should we search in the forest?" one officer asked. "Don't bother, we'd never be able to find him now," answered Silver Badge. "Sending him running should send a message that Ponyville police are no pushovers, and we won't allow this to continue." "Indeed," said a second officer. "Surprising that Darkwing didn't show up." "I guess he thought we could handle it," said the first officer. "Perhaps," nodded Silver Badge. "Now let's get these ponies back to the station and question them." The officers nodded, "Alright you fools, let's go." One of the criminals groaned, "I can't believe this, after all the cities and towns we've robbed from in the past, we manage to get our flanks whooped by Ponyville's police department. The boss won't be happy about this." "Shut up you fool, do you want them to hear you?" snapped another criminal. Silver Badge did hear that and as they stopped, he spoke to the criminal that said those words, "the boss won't be happy about this. Who's your boss?" "I'm not saying who it is," snapped the first criminal. "You losers won't get me to say the name, or that we're located in the Everfree Forest." The second criminal stomped down on the first criminal's front hoof, "do you have to be such a blabber mouth?" "Haul them away, we'll continue our discussion at the station." "Yes sir," said one of the officers, and with that, they continued on, with the criminals struggling all the way. "So you were really at the end of your rope," said Rainbow Dash to Darkwing. "I'm sorry Lightwing, if I had known, I would've lent you a helping hoof out of that mess." "Thanks Rainbow, but don't worry, I found my own way of getting Inferno and his minions. And in a way," he added, "I owe all of this to the Mysterious Mare Do Well." "Really? What does the Mare Do Well have to do with this? She was just a hero who came out of nowhere to save lives." "Well you just answered your own question right there Rainbow. Yes she did appear out of nowhere, but it was her compassion for others that inspired me, plus the fact she hid her identity hidden from the world, it kept her safe from those who may want to hurt her, or those she cares about." "Well it certainly kept many ponies wondering who she was," said Rainbow, not mentioning the fact she was the only one who wanted to know who the mare was under the mask. "After reading all the articles about her heroics, it got me into thinking, why don't I dress up in a similar style and use my skills to bring down Inferno and his minions? So I grabbed alot of the stuff around my house and over a period of days, made the current costume you see today. Even the rope launchers, made out of simple rope and hooks found in my backyard." "Of course," he continued, "I couldn't very well be both Lightwing during the day and who I was at night, so I knew one idenity would have to go." "So what did you do?" "On the night I was to begin my new life, I set my house on fire. I had even gotten a ponnequin to look just like me, and fooled everypony into thinking I was burned up in the house. It worked as proven later when the fire chief inspected the house, and said I had been burned along with everything inside. Everypony truely thought I was gone, and thus my life as Lightwing was over." "My life as Darkwing began less than an hour later as one of Inferno's minions went after a young mare. He was about to steal her purse and hurt her, when I came out of nowhere and brought the hammer down." Darkwing chuckled, "I still remember that look on his face, he never did see me coming. Anywho, I beat him and then I took off, if I stayed at the scene too long, ponies would discover who I was, and the police would've arrested me again. I'll admit though, it felt good to fight back." "For many nights afterwords, I would go out on patrol and whenever I saw or heard any kind of trouble, I would get to the scene, wait for the moment and strike. Many of those criminals never did see coming, and would end up with their flanks kicked, and later to be tied up for the police. The residants of Cloudsdale were grateful for my services, and more often than not, I found myself being chased by reporters or police officers cause they wanted to get to know me, but of course, I never stayed in one spot for too long, for I was like a Phantom that disappears in the shadows. In the end, they just called me their city's greatest mystery and gave me the name 'Darkwing'." Darkwing paused as he looked around the area again, "sorry for the pause, but I have to make sure we're not being watched." "It's fine," said Rainbow. "Please continue." "Well after a while, I did get on Inferno's nerves and wanted to continue his business without me nearby. He and his group went to other cities and towns, but no sooner would they arrive and begin than I would show up and the beatings continued. Only recently did I learn about their attempts to rob Ponyville's shops, so I came here and...well I think you know the rest by now." "Yeah, but I...I never would've thought that would happen to one of my oldest friends," said Rainbow when Darkwing had finished. "Yeah, well now you know, and being Darkwing is the only thing that's keeping me going. At least, it will be, until I catch up to Inferno." "And then what? Bring him to Justice?" "You could say that." For a moment, Rainbow could've sworn she heard Darkwing snarl crossly under his breath, "That beast of a pony, he took away my life, he took away any chance of clearing my name, he will pay for his crimes. Trust me, he will." He said it with such an angry tone that it almost scared Rainbow. Almost. "Well I'm sure you'll catch him sooner or later." "Thanks, but I'm sure it's going to be soon. I've been watching the coming and goings of many of his minions near the Everfree Forest, so I know he's in there. I just need to know about any traps, then I got him. Once and for all, I'll get him, and then the Darkwing will be over for good." "Then what? What will you do?" "I don't know, I haven't thought that far ahead yet." He sighed as he looked down towards Ponyville, "you honestly don't think anything bad will happen to you, then in the swoop of one evening, it does." "I'm sorry." "Don't be, it's not your fault. Besides, I don't think there's anything you could've done to help me. Speaking of which," he paused and walked towards Rainbow, looking her firmly in the eyes, "I need you to stop coming after me." "What? But why? Two heads are better than one." "True, but as I had stated to you already, two pegasi were looking for you. If Inferno finds out your my friend, he'll find some way of using you aganist me. Trust me, he's good at doing that. So please Rainbow Dash, do not come looking for me again. Promise me you won't." "I..." "Promise me." Rainbow sighed. She didn't want to make the promise. Now that she knew everything, she wanted to help her friend more than ever, but he did make a very good point about being in danger. She lifted her hooves and said the Pinkie Pie Promise; "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." Darkwing looked confused, "so do you promise?" "Yeah, I do promise. It's a serious promise, and if you break it, you'll be regretting it." She winced, remembering when Applejack broke the Pinkie Promise back at Dodge Junction. "In that case, good bye Rainbow Dash." He extended his wings and prepared to take off, "Wait! What if I'm in trouble anyways from those ponies? Will I see you then?" Darkwing looked behind him, "we'll see." He jumped into the air, and took off, leaving Rainbow Dash on her cloud.