It was always a bit of a coin flip if Twilight would be impressed by some bit of modern technology or not. For the past couple months, Dash had been buying her things she was curious about, but more often than not the technology got mugged by Twilight’s infinite magical abilities.
Refrigeration? "Can’t you just freeze the food with time magic?"
Guns? "Those are supposed to hurt ponies? I thought that was a toy."
Electric Lights? Dash had to admit Twilight’s enchanted windows that gave off sunlight were way better.
Bizarrely, the chalkboard was the thing that impressed her the most. Or at least, it was the one thing she decided she could no longer live without. Twilight owned five of them already and was constantly writing things on them. At some point, she decided that it was simply impossible to explain something without chalk anymore.
‘Meetings’ where Twilight gave lectures on whatever she’d drawn for Dash or Fluttershy weren’t uncommon. After like thirty of those, Dash finally knew which mushrooms would and wouldn’t kill her. She still didn’t know much about making potions or using that cauldron, but she could at least get whatever reagent Twilight asked for without fear of unleashing a swarm of flying eyeballs that somehow had mouths (an actual example of something that once happened.
Today Twilight dragged Dash up to the third floor for an ‘important meeting’ and that Dash wear her witch hat when she came.
Dash was sitting on a two-seat couch and Twilight in front of her new chalkboard. Twilight wasn’t saying anything about why Dash was here just yet. She was simply sitting with her eyes closed tight, frowning like she had something deathly serious to say in a moment. However, ‘witch training’ was written on the chalkboard giving Dash an important clue as to what this was about.
Twilight also insisted that Dash have a large, metal bucket with her, presently taking up the other seat of the couch. What the bucket was for, Dash couldn’t possibly figure out.
The sizable treehouse had three stories in addition to its basement and attic. The rooms became narrower but taller as you moved up the tree. They also became more cramped, containing ever higher towers of objects stacked on top of one another.
The present room was no exception to that rule. There was the couch, Twilight and her chalkboard were just a few paces away. To her left and right were tables that ran the length of the room and took up most of its space. The tables were covered with glassware and a few skull-shaped candles. They looked like real skulls, but Dash had Twilight’s assurance they were merely wax.
A circle was drawn on the floor with words around the edge in a language Dash didn’t recognize. By the left table was the door to safety and to the right was the door to the attic.
Twilight’s attic was a place of terrible danger that Dash dared not enter. The room just beyond this was filled with towers of boxes, a bit musty but neatly organized. Contained in those boxes was a collection of magical artifacts, materials, and equipment that only Area 5X could hope to rival. Dash knew for absolute certain that if she ever went poking around in there alone, her luck would kick in and she’d touch the one thing that would instantly vaporize her.
So, she stayed the crow out of that place.
“Okay.” Twilight finally opened her eyes. “I suppose that if I’m going to train you to be a witch, I should start… well, training you to be a witch. It’s time I begin slowly sharing my dark and terrible knowledge with you.”
Dash looked left and right, making sure absolutely nopony was seeing this.
Studying under a witch was a serious crime. All of their books, even just the ones about witch philosophy, were banned to everypony but S-rank witch hunters. Training to be one more often than not was worth a life sentence. Heck, just dressing like Dash was now could land you in jail.
But dang if it wasn’t tempting to hear the dark secrets of the universe.
She’d thought long and hard about this. Hearing about Twilight’s way of thinking was likely the only way to get the witch to flip over to the side of good for real, which had to be worth more points than merely defeating her. Not to mention that the way Dash’s life had been going lately, getting stronger was a matter of life and death.
Part of her had wanted to ask Twilight for an explosion spell for just that reason, but she also knew Twilight had a thing about ponies asking her for too many favors. Dash had decided it was best to just wait for Twilight to come to that conclusion herself, which it looked like she just did.
“Witches possess ancient knowledge unbeknownst to most ponies. I can teach you the darkest realities of this world. I can show you spells and techniques the outside world still cannot understand. I can show you how to obtain power beyond that of even most gods. If you can remain loyal and have patience, I’ll show you everything eventually.” Twilight began writing something on the board but only got as far as ‘the six virtues’ before Dash interrupted. “Your first lecture will be on—“
“I got a question already.” Dash held up her pendant. “Aren’t lectures and training obsolete? You have this thing that can directly insert information into my brain. Would it be faster to just knit a sweater out of this stuff?”
“There are two reasons that won’t work. Firstly, that pendant contains one milligram of heavily diluted mind fiber, not much more than the weight of a single strand of hair.” Twilight took out her spellbook. “Every page of this book is made entirely of mind fibers. You can’t handle this much information flooding your mind. It’s a harsh lesson, but I suppose experience is the fastest way to learn.”
Twilight held out her spellbook to Dash.
“Just put your hoof on the cover and you’ll understand why you can’t use that much mind fiber,” said Twilight.
It was a dark purple book with only Twilight’s cutie mark printed on the cover. Every time Twilight took it out, Dash felt an invisible pressure pushing down on her. Whether that pressure was from some magic or just in her head, she couldn’t tell.
A witch’s spellbook was a legendary thing. This one was arguably the most powerful artifact in the world. A hundred thousand spells and centuries of knowledge were enough to make anypony a serious threat. If you could use it, that was.
Now that Twilight mentioned it, it was a curious thing that witches were the only ponies who used spellbooks. Maybe Dash was about to learn why nopony ever used their own weapons against them.
Dash slowly reached her hoof out and tapped the cover of the book.
When she took the necklace off and put it back on, Dash always felt dizzy for a moment as the knowledge rushed into her head. But if that was like being spun around in a chair, this was like being in a tornado.
Dash’s mind was being torn in every possible direction at once. She couldn’t form any coherent thoughts; it was just images flooding in from every angle. Thoughts would appear in her mind, then shatter before they could fully form.
Lightning. Water. Insects. Metal. Thread. Fire. Wind. Sun. Blood. Gras— Tre— Fin— Th— Ic— D— F— Z—
It got faster and faster, to the point Dash couldn’t recognize a single thing. Dash’s body began to spasm. Every muscle in her body twitched violently. Her eyes rolled back, she fell onto the couch and everything went black.
A moment later, Dash was back to normal. Her body was a little sluggish like she’d woken up from a nap, but that was it. Dash found she was lying on the couch with Twilight lying next to her, reading a book.
“Oh, good. You’re awake again.” Twilight patted Dash on the head, then jumped off the couch to go back to the chalkboard. “Now we can continue.”
“Awake?” Dash rubbed her eyes.
“You fainted for about an hour.” Twilight started on her list of virtues once again. “That’s normal when you touch it for the first time.”
“Wait, what?!” Dash looked up at the clock. It was already three o’clock!
“See? That’s how I know you’ve never tried to steal my spellbook. I’d trust you a lot less if you had tried to take it. I guess in retrospect, that should have been a red flag last time.” Twilight grumbled that last part. “Needless to say, you need to learn how to use mind fibers, slowly working your way up to increasing amounts of them.”
“Well okay, but I just had one of my brilliant ideas.” Dash tipped her hat up. “What if you use a mind fiber to make me understand how to use mind fibers?”
“That wouldn’t work,” said Twilight.
“Why not?”
“There’s a second reason you need to actually train,” said Twilight. “Knowing how to do something doesn’t mean you can necessarily do it. There’s plenty of spells that you simply wouldn’t be able to cast even with a mind fiber, for example.”
“Because I’m a pegasus?” Dash asked.
“No, that’s not a problem at all. There’s a secret technique for getting around that,” said Twilight. “Think of it like this. I could give you a mind fiber that gives you the muscle memory on how to do ten backflips in a row. But what if you were out of shape? You’d still fall over when you went to do it. Your mind, body, and magic aren’t ready to use higher amounts of mind fibers. You’d only hurt yourself if you tried.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Dash folded her forelegs, leaned back, and looked up at the ceiling. “But how do I train to use more mind fibers?”
“The first step is to expand your mind and hone your focus beyond what a normal pony should be capable of. It’s the only way to sift through all the information flooding into your mind.” Twilight went over to a box resting on one of the side tables. “The first secret I’ll share with you is the technique to gain supernatural focus and concentration.”
Twilight took out a pendulum, the kind a hypnotist might use.
"This is called a makarakarn," said Twilight. "It's one of our secret training techniques."
She gave the weight at the bottom, a round of a blue metal, a tap and it began spinning in place. As it spun one way, the weight let out a white light. It then turned back the other way, turning black instead.
“Training with this is one way to expand your mind,” Twilight explained. “Besides making it easier to use mind fibers, you can become resistant to things that would normally cause psychological damage like the howling void or outer gods.”
Twilight held out the pendulum and Dash took it, holding it so the weight was at eye level.
“Do I just spin it?” Dash asked.
“And concentrate on the light,” said Twilight. “Slowly at first. Try not to fall over.”
Dash gave it a tiny, exploratory tap. That was enough for it to make one complete spin, glowing ever so faintly white.
Long ago, when Dash was maybe six or seven, she’d gone on one of those teacup rides. Inevitably, Dash’s patent-pending bad luck kicked in and the ride malfunctioned making it go ten times faster than it was supposed to. Despite it being such an old memory Dash remembered the feeling of getting sucked up onto the side of the teacup and screaming as the world turned into a blur of madness and speed.
In other words, it was freaking awesome in the moment. But when she got off, Dash couldn’t walk straight for an hour and puked two or three times.
This made that look like the kiddy ride it was meant to be. Dash obtained a level of dizziness she didn’t even know could exist. The room spun so hard Dash could swear she saw the back of her own head for a second there.
She fell off the couch. In a lucky break, she landed muzzle-down in that basket and finally figured out what it was for. Dash puked hard into it then, with a sense of relief, rolled onto her back. Or maybe it was her stomach. It was hard to tell at the moment.
At least she didn’t black out this time.
“That’s not bad for your first time,” Twilight cheerily assured her. “I didn’t do so well when I started this training. Though then again, I was five.”
“Ah, geeze. Getting super dizzy and puking?” Dash lifted her head away from the full bucket. “That’s not exactly what I imagine when I think of hardcore training. I hate being dizzy.”
“Well look on the bright side,” said Twilight. “After just a few weeks of this training, it will be nearly impossible for you to get dizzy.”
“Really?” Dash tried to look up at Twilight but was so disoriented she missed. “I guess that’s a slightly cool power. How long do I have to keep doing this before I get the overpowered super-focus ability again?”
“If you do this for sixteen hours a day you can become proficient in under a year,” Twilight said. "Though learning to use a spellbook would take decades."
“Sixteen hours a day?!” Dash shook her head, her dizziness suddenly ebbing. “Am I too dizzy to hear numbers straight? I don’t know if I have the focus to do something that intense!”
“I know. Hence the focus training.”
That’s what you had to do to become overpowered, huh?
Determination Rainbow Dash wanted this more than anything in the world. She’d gladly put up with grueling training and being dizzy as hell if it meant getting strong. If Dash could finally be useful for once in her life, it’d be worth anything.
But sixteen hours a day?
“I can put up with puking five times a day, but isn’t that much training excessive?” Dash asked. “I know with strength training you gotta get rest too or you’ll just hurt yourself.”
“Exactly eight hours of rest is all you need,” said Twilight. “I know this sounds harsh, but it’s the path that leads to true power. You have to detach yourself from everything and focus exclusively on obtaining more power. That’s the other thing I wanted to teach you today. The philosophy of the witches.”
Dash put the pendulum down and straightened herself up as Twilight tapped the chalkboard with a piece of chalk. This was something Dash had wanted to hear, but there really wasn’t anywhere else you go to hear this and Twilight didn’t want to talk about it until just now.
“The six virtues of the witches are power, selfishness, apathy, diligence, focus, and detachment.” Twilight tapped each of them in turn. “The bedrock of our philosophy is the endless acquisition of power and these are the virtues that one must follow to remain on that path.”
Dash could see ‘diligence’, but other than that those weren’t virtues you often saw in cartoons.
“Then the sins of witchcraft are love, revenge, pity, fear, happiness, and conquest.” Twilight wrote those down next. “A witch does not seek vengeance or justice from the weak. A witch does not force her will on the weak. A witch feels no pity for the weak. A witch does not act on fear or give in to happiness. These are things that distract you from obtaining ever more power. Do you understand?”
“I gotta call bull on that.” Dash raised her hoof again. “Witches are constantly forcing their will on others. And no revenge? I’ve heard stories of witches killing somepony for bumping into them.”
“Well, these are the rules witches are supposed to follow. Witches are supposed to distance themselves from the weak, not push them around.” Twilight closed her eyes and tapped her hoof angrily. “Maybe it was this ‘rock and roll’ music or something, but the youth have clearly been corrupted by something. You don’t want to be like them.”
“And what about you?” Dash asked.
“What about what?”
“You helped Fluttershy out of pity or something, right?” Dash asked. “And you seem to be okay with being happy lately. Isn’t that against your religion or whatever?”
“First of all, it’s not a religion. And second—" Twilight glowered at the list she’d just written, pressing her chalk hard against the board. “Well, I never claimed to be the best person who ever lived, okay? I admit I’m being overly indulgent with all these holidays and games and stuff.”
“Ah, come on! Admit it!” Dash jumped off the couch. “You’re way happier when you’re not bothering with all this stupid philosophy, right? You don’t really want to detach yourself from everything.”
“You can’t just call somepony else’s way of life ‘stupid!'” Twilight swung her chalk around to poke Dash in the chest with it. “These are the sacred principals handed down from— from the first witch. Maybe I don’t entirely agree with all of it, but you can’t argue with results. Witches are the strongest ponies on the planet, aren’t they? Only literal gods can compete with us.”
“I guess you got me there,” Dash admitted. “But what good is all this power if all you do with it is sit around your house? Or worse, go terrorize people like the new witches?”
“The pursuit of power is a goal in itself,” said Twilight. “You can’t be concerned with the outside world if you want to achieve it. You must only focus on yourself. Your own growth. Your own pursuit of power. That’s why selfishness is a virtue, you see?”
“Okay, but you’re clearly allowed to teach other ponies, right?” Dash asked. “Doesn’t that go against the whole ‘selfishness’ thing?”
“These are sacred teachings that can only be shared with those you deem worthy of becoming a witch. Only with those who have the potential to become strong are worthy.”
“Whoa, so you think I have what it takes to be as strong as you?” Dash stood up, honestly surprised to hear something like that.
“Hardly. You have the potential to be—” Twilight tapped her chin with the chalk, trying to figure out a way to phrase it. “Noticeably stronger. I guess.”
“Oh.” Dash sat back down, but then thinking it over some more, gave Twilight a wink/ “Okay, see? You just like my moxie, right? That’s the only explanation.”
“What?! No!” Twilight accidentally broke her chalk.
“You’re just doing this because you want to be friends with me, right?” Dash smiled wide and nodded her head, eyes closed. “They don’t call me Rainbow Psychoanalysis Dash for nothing.”
“That’s not it at all!”
“It’s okay to admit you like me. I am pretty cool.”
“I’m just doing what I’m supposed to,” said Twilight. “The reason I deem you worthy doesn’t matter. What matters is that I carry on the traditions that I was taught.”
“What? You mean the whole kidnapping thing?” Dash asked. “Because that’s actually a good point. Why exactly am I still kidnapped? Are you really going to keep forcing me to stay here for decades?”
“Well, my master forced me to stay here for decades. It’s normal.”
“For witches, maybe. Look, did you like the relationship you had with your master? Or do you prefer being friends with me?”
“I mean, maybe we weren’t, like, emotionally close,” Twilight admitted. “And we never did anything fun together. Ever."
“So do you want us to be like you and your master, or do you want us to be friends?” Dash asked.
“Well.” Twilight looked down at the ground, nervously rubbing the back of her head. “I don’t know! What would I have to do to ‘be friends’ with you?”
“Take off all the spells you have on me,” said Dash.
“But you’ll leave forever if I do that!” Twilight jumped up on the couch in a half-panic.
“Oh, come on! Do you really not trust me yet?” Dash asked.
“The last time I trusted somepony it didn’t end well! If I don’t force you to stay, you won’t stay! That’s how it always goes!”
“Fluttershy stays here without you forcing her to,” said Dash.
Twilight didn’t have a comeback to that. She just lowered her hat and glowered silently.
“I promise I won’t leave.” Dash put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “I like it here. I literally have zero other friends unless you count Derpy. If you take that spell off, I’ll be staying here of my own free will. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Look, I’m just—“ Twilight turned away. “I’m just scared. I don’t want you to leave.”
“I’ll go to town and buy you more stuff on your shopping list, then come back,” said Dash. “Then we’ll be friends for real and you won’t have to be so paranoid anymore. See?”
Twilight stayed silent.
“You just gotta be brave for a few minutes and then everything will be better,” said Dash. “Trust me, okay?”
“Okay.” Twilight closed her eyes and sighed, bracing herself. “I’ll, uh. I’ll try.”
Her horn light up and for a brief moment, it looked like a firecracker went off on Dash’s back as all the enchantments on her vanished in a burst of light.
Twilight had ten spells on Dash that made it impossible for her to escape or annoy Twilight too much. Those were just the ones Dash knew about too. She almost felt lighter with all that magic gone.
Dash tried not to smirk too much. She’d just successfully negotiated her way out of a hostage situation, just like how they taught you in school! To think she’d nearly flunked that class but pulled it off in real life. Grades were total bunk.
The witch herself pulled back a little as if she expected Dash to pounce on her now that it was possible again.
“There, see?” Dash stepped forward and gave Twilight a reassuring pat on the back. “Now we’re cool.”
“Y-yeah!” Twilight nervously laughed. “We’re cool. Right?”
“Yeah!”
But she just got more nervous laughter from Twilight. Clearly, Twilight didn’t believe she was out of the woods yet.
“Hm. Hey, how about I head out right now so you can relax? I’ll get some colored chalk and come back as fast as I can.” That was one thing Dash knew Twilight wanted to buy.
Dash gave her one more pat and headed towards the stairs.
“But you can’t tell anypony about me!” Twilight ran after her.
“Yeah, I got it.” Dash nodded.
Twilight stood by nervously as Dash got ready to leave.
“And you don’t have any tracking spells on me?” Dash turned back to Twilight as she put her bags on. “Or some secret curse?”
“Um.” Twilight looked to the side and cast a spell as discreetly as possible. “No.”
That’d have to do. Dash pushed open the door and headed outside. Twilight followed her for the first few steps, prompting Dash to turn around.
“I’ll be back and then you’ll feel better, okay?” Dash waved to Twilight and headed out.
Twilight nodded, frowning and holding back tears as she sat deathly still. It felt like she was abandoning a lost puppy, but Dash knew it was for the witch’s own good.
Out in the woods, out of sight of Twilight’s house, Dash let out a sigh. She was finally free to do whatever she wanted for the first time in… how long had it even been?
“Let’s see. September, October, November…” Dash counted off the months. “I’ve been out here six months? Yeesh! At least I’m turning a profit somehow.”
Now all she had to do was hope some whacky adventure didn’t crop up the second she got to Ponyville.
“Who the crow am I kidding?” Dash sighed to herself but shook herself out of it and slapped herself in the face. “Okay, whatever happens just run away from it! Rank X missions take priority over everything else.”
Twilight breathed in and out slowly, pacing back and forth, trying to calm herself. She told Rainbow Dash to be back by sundown and right now it was sunset. This was a little later than she expected Dash back but technically the sun wasn’t down, so it was still okay, right?!
Smarty Pants didn’t think it was alright. Letting Rainbow Dash go was a foolish idea. If she came back it’d be with an army to kill Twilight, to steal everything with her, to ruin all of her hard work. Twilight shouldn’t have been so weak as to allow herself to think Dash was a friend.
“Yes, but if she does come back then I’ll know she really is loyal to me, right?” Twilight turned to Smarty Pants with a half-panicked smile. “I’ll finally be able to relax and—“
Smarty Pants reminded Twilight that she would never be able to relax. Even if Dash stayed loyal to her for years, she could still betray her in the end. Betrayal was almost inevitable over a long enough period.
Twilight stopped pacing, feeling a little sick. Was that true? That her friendship would inevitably fall apart one day?
“Well we’ve been friends for hundreds of years, right?” Twilight asked.
Smarty Pants thought their friendship was falling apart. Smarty Pants wasn’t happy about how little Twilight talked to her ever since Rainbow Dash got here.
“It’s because I like talking to them better than you,” said Twilight. “You’re too judgmental and you’ve been getting worse. Why can’t you just be nice to my new friends? You’re always saying such mean things about them.”
Smarty Pants pointed out that something making you feel good didn’t mean it was good. What did ‘having fun’ with Rainbow Dash accomplish, she wondered.
“Well.” Twilight took a step back. She didn’t have an answer to that.
Smarty Pants always encouraged her to work harder, to keep going, to never deviate from her training. Rainbow Dash always encouraged her to goof off, to do nothing, to waste her time. Dash was toxic, Smarty Pants assured her, wanted to make Twilight as weak and lazy as she was.
Twilight couldn’t deny that Smarty Pants had been a huge help over the years, was one of the main things that kept her on track. She also couldn’t deny that she hadn’t accomplished very much since Rainbow Dash showed up.
“I did learn lots of stuff from Rainbow Dash,” Twilight shot back. “She taught me about all those towns, that game, modern technology and—“
And what use was any of that?
“Well— I don’t know. Maybe it can help me defend myself against attacks from the outside?”
Because outsiders like Rainbow Dash couldn’t be trusted, Smarty Pants reminded her.
“But I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time,” said Twilight. “I like these holidays! And going outside and playing that game and—“
Smarty Pants wondered what good having fun was. Did it accomplish anything? Was it really better to just goof around when she could be working? Twilight would only get weaker doing all that.
“I guess not, but—“
Smarty Pants pointed out again how toxic Rainbow Dash was, rotting Twilight’s body and mind for the sake of some stupid ‘fun’, a sin. Of course, she couldn’t trust Rainbow Dash. Twilight should go out there and drag Rainbow Dash back, never allow her to leave on her own again.
Could she handle it if Dash didn’t come back?
Twilight imagined how it would feel if Rainbow Dash really did just run away. She raised a hoof nervously, seriously considering going after Dash to make sure she didn’t do anything to defy her.
Smarty Pants encouraged her to do it, reminded her that time was running out to stop Dash. She had to—
“Hello.”
A new voice made Twilight jump back. She turned to see it was just Fluttershy floating
“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you saying something, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked.
“I was just talking to Smarty Pants.” Twilight pointed at Smarty Pants.
Smarty Pants was suddenly quiet. She never spoke when Fluttershy was around.
Twilight was a little relieved that Fluttershy interrupted their conversation. Smarty Pants had been getting a bit meaner since Dash came. She knew Smarty Pants meant well, and she did kind of have a point. It was just talking to her felt so bad and talking to Dash felt so good.
Secretly, that was one of the reasons she was glad to have Fluttershy around. With one friend awake all day and another awake all night, Twilight was hardly ever alone, hardly ever had to talk to Smarty Pants these days. She could just kind of avoid the hard truth of the matter.
Fluttershy kept a distance from the scarecrow. She tended to stay far away from Smarty Pants. To be fair, Smarty Pants did look frightening by design.
“Um. Twilight? Is this thing haunted?” Fluttershy ducked her head down, not daring to get too close. “Or something?”
“No. It’s just a normal golem animated with magic.” Twilight rubbed her eyes. “She can’t do anything outside of her pre-programmed routines.”
“Are you sure?” Fluttershy looked back at her.
“Yes.”
“Well if you say so.” Fluttershy still floated far away from it. “But why do you talk to it, then?”
“Rainbow Dash says it’s likely me talking to myself,” said Twilight. “Because I was alone for so long. I guess that makes sense. I didn’t start hearing her voice in my head until after my master left.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean.” Fluttershy nodded her head. “I used to spend all day talking to my pet spiders. But talking to my pets always made me happy. Whenever you talk to your doll, you get upset.”
“She’s just telling me things I need to hear.” Twilight kept her head down.
Fluttershy frowned and floated next to Twilight.
“I see.” Fluttershy floated to the door. “Can we go inside?”
“Sure.” Twilight followed her inside.
Once there, Twilight moved over to her table and laid her head on it with a sigh. Fluttershy floated across from her, frowning with concern/
“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked. “I’ve seen you get this nervous when you head to town, but never here.”
“I guess I’ll know by sundown.” Twilight couldn’t sit down. She got back up and started pacing again.
“What happens at sundown?” Fluttershy asked.
“I sent Rainbow Dash to town to get me something,” said Twilight. “By herself. Without the magnet spell on her. I don’t know if she’ll come back.”
“Why wouldn’t she come back?” Fluttershy asked. “The path isn’t that dangerous.”
“I know I declared Rainbow Dash a witch, but she’s still mostly an outsider. Outsiders are all liars and thieves,” said Twilight. “Don’t tell me you disagree. You said all predeads are horrible, right?”
“Most of them are pretty mean to me. But I like you and Dash.”
“But what if she’s just been acting this whole time?” Twilight asked. “What if she’s going to betray me and come back with an army? Or sneak out the next time I let my guard down, running away with my spellbook or something?!”
“I really don’t think she’s that good of an actor,” said Fluttershy. “I know Dash wouldn’t do something like that. She likes you.”
“But it happened before.” Twilight came back to the table and tried to rest her chin on it a second time. “It’s just hard. I feel like I should run out there.”
“I think I understand.” Fluttershy moved over to the window. “I get really scared of things too, even when it doesn’t make sense of when I know I have to be brave. I don’t think I ever would have stood up for myself without you and Dash to help me. I know it’s not easy to go against it.”
Fluttershy flew back to Twilight, smiling.
“But I’ve been trying to get better. Maybe you just need to practice trusting people,” Fluttershy suggested.
Practice trusting somepony? Could you practice that?
The thought did make her feel just a little bit in control again. She knew that if she could hone an ability, she could do it to perfection.
“But how would I practice that?” Twilight asked. “There’s literally nothing I can do but wait.”
“I think you already did a lot today,” said Fluttershy. “Oh, I know! How about we play that card game you and Dash always play? Maybe it’ll make things go by faster.”
Twilight slowly nodded and Fluttershy got the cards out for her. Admittedly, it was far from easy to get into the game like normal, but it did draw her mind away from the constant fear for a minute. It was better than talking to Smarty Pants, at least.
With Twilight so distracted, Fluttershy, who was terrible at this game, might actually win for once.
Ponyville came within sight. No pegasi were in the air. No animals were about. She couldn’t hear any sounds.
Something was up.
Ever so slowly, Dash crept closer and closer towards the dead silent buildings and streets. It wasn’t long until she was close enough to see a few ponies out though not so much about. All of them were standing perfectly still, expressions locked in place. There were a group of kids playing hopscotch, one of them stopped in the middle of a jump, hanging in the air.
“Of course something is happening,” Dash muttered to herself. “Did I kill a million crows in a past life or something?! How am I this unlucky?”
Dash decided she’d go get the others if something really crazy happened. Maybe only part of town was frozen in time and it was some kind of accident. She was about to step into town, then thought better of it.
Instead, she jumped back, turned into crows, and sent half of them inside to scout. None of them froze, which was good.
Already, investigation Dash could tell that whatever froze the town came from the south. On the far south of the border, the ponies were frozen as if nothing happened. They’d were stuck smiling or walking in place.
A little after that, they were all frozen in place as they ran or hid from something. Then finally Dash came to a part of town where there were no ponies in the streets, having successfully run away. Though it wasn’t that helpful on second thought.
Putting all that together made her feel smart for a second.
Whatever it was didn’t look to be here at present. At least, it wasn’t in the street.
Dash’s current instance found one of the better hiding spots in town. It was the old bell tower, a place pegasi often took refuge in when trouble rolled into town. Where the bell used to go there was now a little room, sunk halfway into the floor, that you couldn’t get to without wings.
Her crow perched on the ledge and turned back into a pony. Just as she was about to hop down into the little room, she realized there were maybe twenty other pegasi already hiding here including Derpy and Raindrops. All of them were armed and ready for a fight.
When they saw Dash, they all got up. First, they pointed their muskets at her, but upon seeing she was a pony, a sound of relief and excitement went through the room.
“Hey! The reinforcements are here!” One of the pegasi stood up, spreading her wings with excitement.
“No, it’s just Rainbow Dash.” Raindrops pointed her out.
All of them but Derpy let out groans, muttering, and sighs of disappointment.
“Rainbow Dash!” Derpy alone was still excited to see her. “Where did you come from? I didn’t see you approach at all.”
Meaning they didn’t notice her turn back from a crow, which was good.
Turning into crows was a serious ‘bad guy’ power up there with summoning demons and raising the dead. She could maybe talk her way out of normal ponies seeing her do it, but she was always careful not to use the murder spell in public.
“Hey, come on!” Dash stood up for herself to the others. “I’m better than nothing!”
“Debatable,” muttered Raindrops.
“Did you come to help?” Derpy ran up to her.
“I have no idea what’s going on and I don’t have time for it either.” Dash got ready to take off.
“I don’t know if that was a pun,” said Derpy. “You’re not curious about why everypony in town is frozen in time? See, there’s this lich and like—”
“Not today, no. A lich time stopping stuff is all the info I need.” Dash had actually seen the lich herself as one of her crows. He was having a grand time freezing everypony in place, but didn’t seem to be hurting them beyond that. Importantly, he was on the other side of town as the place that sold chalk. She had to get there fast. “Ugh! Time magic? This is literally the worst possible thing that could have happened.”
“Is it?” Derpy asked. “Because I mean he’s not killing anypony or anything. They’re sending a wizard down to deal with this, so I’m pretty sure we’ll all be fine. It just raises a lot of inconvenient questions. Like, if we get frozen in time for a whole month do I gotta pay two months’ worth of bills when I get out?”
“Well, I believe in you, Derpy.” Dash patted Derpy on the back, then jumped back up to the ledge, ready to take off. “After all your training, you totally have what it takes to beat a lich! See ya!”
“You’re really going to leave us here?” Derpy asked. “What about the whole being the greatest hero thing?”
“Listen, Derpy,” said Dash. “I’ve read enough comic books to know exactly what will happen if I don’t get home on time. It’s going to lead into this horrible misunderstanding that will spiral out of control until I’m staring down at one of the outer gods devouring the planet and I need to give some big speech about friendship I’m not nearly prepared for.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Derpy.
“Okay, look.” Dash sighed and jumped back down to be on Derpy’s level. “If you can’t deal with this by later tonight, I’ll come back and unfreeze you or whatever, but I really, really gotta go. It’ll be faster this way, trust me.”
“But a couple of hours can be really long when you’re frozen in time,” said Derpy. “Or maybe it’s a really short time! I don’t know! Do you really have something that can help?”
“Not with me,” said Dash.
“Why are you even trying?” Raindrops gave Derpy a shove to stand in front of Dash instead. “When has Rainbow Dash ever done anything useful? She’s been the weakest pegasus since the first grade. She doesn’t have anything that can help us. Just get out of here before you make everything worse, Dash!”
“Hey! I could totally handle some stupid lich!” Dash swept her hoof and stepped forward to confront Raindrops. “Just, you know, later.”
“With what?” Raindrops asked. “Your Summoner Knights cards? Is that what you have to go get?”
Raindrops laughed, two of the other pegasi joining in with her.
“Is he gonna cringe to death the minute he sees you?” Raindrops smirked and stepped forward, getting almost muzzle to muzzle with Dash. “Name one of your stupid plans that ever worked out. Do you think you can beat even one other pony here in a fight? We have Derpy, that’s all we need. She’s worth a hundred of you.”
Dash gritted her teeth. It was hard to keep her anger inside of her. The red-hot temptation to tell Raindrops how she’d found Twilight, about her surprisingly useful power, about all the fights she won recently, was enough to make Dash’s blood boil.
But she couldn’t tell them, not just yet.
“Huh?” Raindrops asked. “So, what’s your plan this time?”
“Tch.” Dash forced herself to turn away.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Raindrops laughed.
“I kinda like Rainbow Dash’s moxie,” Derpy spoke up, but not very loud.
“Forget about me coming back to help you!” Dash turned and flew off the belltower.
She flew through the streets with more power and less caution than she really should have in this situation. Too much anger was coursing through her and her wings felt like the only way to get it out.
Of course, the lich was going to show up, but Dash hardly cared at the moment. She would absolutely love something to punch right now.
Liches were just stupid wannabe witches anyway, ponies who tried to make their own coven. But like total idiot losers, they only ever managed to be the generic store brand equivalent of witches. They were too lazy to even come up with a good name for their order. They literally just changed one letter an called it a day.
“Stupid freaking,” Dash grumbled under her breath.
Rainbow Dash had done all this dangerous stuff and still nopony respected her! One of these stupid, freaking days everypony would see how great Dash was! Why did she always end up getting humiliated every time she came to this place?
Dash got to the store, landing hard before marching up to the door.
Honestly, she almost felt like some stupid lich was beneath her at this point! Dash was running around, surrounded by all this S-level crap! Some hyper-geezer wasn’t anything compared to that!
But could she beat one on her own?
A sinking feeling started cutting through her anger, but Dash did her best to ignore it.
Dash ruffled her hair then tried to open the door to find it locked. The sign said, ‘Closed due to temporal distortion’, but Dash could see a guy in the window. She walked up and knocked on the door harder than she meant to.
“I’m closed due to temporal distortion,” said the store clerk.
“Listen,” said Dash, “the fate of the world very indirectly depends on me getting this colored chalk and getting back home on time.”
“What?” He opened the blinds. “You’re going to defeat the lich with colored chalk?”
Dash let out some of her anger with a sigh.
“Sure,” said Dash.
“Of course!” He opened the door. “Chalk is immune to— wait. Is chalk immune to time magic? I can’t possibly imagine what your plan is.”
“Yeah. You leave the big brain science stuff to me, guy.” Dash stepped inside.
Dash frantically searched for the chalk for what felt like way too long. When she finally found it, she gave the guy a pile of bits and let him keep the change. That was one mission complete, now Dash just needed to get back without bumping into the lich.
Then she heard the little bell that rang whenever a customer came in.
Dash kept her eyes closed and let out a long sigh. Maybe she’d get lucky just one time and it’d be Derpy?
She turned slowly towards the door and opened her eyes. Predictably, it was him.
It was clearly a lich. He was a ridiculously old-looking pony, like a skeleton covered in loose skin. His mane and tail were gone, but he still had a long beard. Even his fur was missing patches, but what there was, was snow white. His eyes were sunken deep into his skull, just two dull, black specs.
Around his neck was his phylactery, a clay amulet that contained his life force. Liches needed that to stay immortal and retain their powers no matter what happened to their bodies.
He didn’t seem at all concerned about the two ponies in the store, focusing instead on casting some mysterious spell. An orb of blue light slowly formed in front of him, stabilizing and remaining even after his horn died back down. Dash had no idea what that did, but it got a hoarse laugh from the lich.
“Yes! The fifth point is complete!” the lich declared. “Just one more nexus and I can freeze this whole town with my master spell! And if my experiment goes well, we shall all be free from time soon enough!”
“Are you serious?” Dash slammed her head into the counter. He was still right next to the door. “Look, guy! Can you just get out of my way? I’ll come back and fight you later.”
“Time is the enemy!” the lich declared, unprompted. “It is the source of all evil in the world!”
“What are you even talking about?!” Dash yelled at the guy. “You have a problem with time?!”
“The increase in entropy of the universe is inevitable.” He looked up, raising his hooves. “All things rot, decay, become viler with time. Music was so much better when I was a child but now it’s all horrible! Only by stopping time can we—“
“That’s stupid!” Dash marched towards the door, ready to break up into crows if he cast a spell. “I don’t have time for this!”
“I don’t know if that was a joke.” The lich watched Dash as she stormed over to the door. When he realized she was seriously going to just walk out he lowered his horn. “Oh, no! No one is leaving until my experiment is completed!”
The lich’s horn began to glow with magic, Dash crouched down, getting her pendant ready. She’d been practicing with this thing and was confident she could dodge most spells by breaking up at this point.
“Oh yeah?” The store clerk came up holding a bag of chalk. “But you didn’t count on chalk somehow being your downfall!”
The clerk threw the bag at the lich, the bag bouncing off with no effect.
“I mean, you’re not wrong.” The lich cast a spell, freezing him in time.
Dash took the moment of distraction to burst into twenty angry crows. The lich turned back to her just as she was breaking up and attempted the same spell on Dash. Exactly one crow was frozen in time, but all the others escaped.
Ten crows flew straight at the lich, flying in at him from every direction. Dash planned for them all to go for his eyes and for his phylactery, the crows storming in to take their anger out on him. The attack wasn’t a huge success or failure. Nearly all of the crows were stopped before getting to him, but one did manage to peck at one of his eyes.
“Ack!” The lich swatted the crow away, then froze it. “Wait! Crows?! That spell!”
By then, one of Dash’s crows got outside and changed back into herself. The lich looked outside, at Dash, with a brief flash of fear. Dash’s eyes locked on to his and in that brief moment she felt as though she’d just made a mistake.
Did he figure out she had a connection to witches? Everypony knew liches were just wannabe witches. But that meant they studied witches more closely than any normal pony would. What if he recognized the murder spell?
He looked absolutely terrified having seen it, but if he’d figured that much out could Dash really just let him run off? This day was getting worse and worse.
There was a moment of tensing as Dash’s heartbeat and both of them looked at the other, afraid for different reasons. Then the lich’s eyes fell on Dash’s pendant and the tension vanished.
“Oh!” The lich laughed. “I see! You’re just some idiot who found a strand of mind fiber. You had me worried for a second.”
Idiot?!
“That’s it!” Dash used the murder spell once more.
She sent nearly all of her crows to try and peck at the guy. He yelled a little as they got at his eyes, then swatted them all away only for Dash to turn back and send another wave at him. This clearly wasn’t going to get anywhere, but the lich was also too superstitious to fight back hard.
One of Dash’s crows flew off and turned back.
Now she just needed to get back to Twilight’s house before that spell he mentioned went off. Once she was a good distance away, Dash turned back and flew off to the south as fast as she could.
Dash made another hard landing in front of Twilight’s house. At least this stupid day was over. At least she wouldn’t have to talk to any more freaking idiots.
“Hey, I—“ Dash threw open the door.
“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight ran up and nearly tackled Dash with a hug.
“Whoa!” Dash struggled to stay on her feet.
“I’m so glad you came back.” Twilight’s tears wiped up against Dash’s fur. “I missed you so much!”
Dash stared down at Twilight with disbelief more than anything else. She didn’t think she’d ever been welcomed so enthusiastically, so genuinely before. She smiled without even meaning to.
“Heh.” Dash hugged her back. “Of course, I came back.”
“I’m sorry.” Twilight let go of Dash and wiped away some of her tears.
“There, you see?” Fluttershy flew up next to the two of them. “I’m sure you feel better now, right?”
“Eh?” Dash looked at Twilight. “Let me guess, you spent the whole time pacing back and forth, yeah?
“Oh yes, Twilight as so worried about you,” said Fluttershy.
“Hehe! That’s cute! But you don’t gotta worry about Rainbow Dash! I always come through in the end.”
Twilight blushed more and more heavily as that exchange went on.
“Can we just drop this?!” Twilight turned her nose away from the others. “You came back, so now we’re officially friends like you said. Maybe now I can concentrate enough to actually win against Fluttershy.”
“Fluttershy’s actually winning?” Dash looked over at the game of Summoner Knights. “You must have been really distracted.”
Dash knew she was supposed to be mad about something, but it was hard to remember right now.
She followed the two back to the table, hoping to see Fluttershy’s first and only victory against Twilight, but Fluttershy stopped to look over Dash.
“Hm?” Fluttershy noticed something with Dash’s bag.
She leaned forward and pulled out two feathers that had been stuck to it. Dash got feathers stuck here and there often enough that she hadn’t even noticed two that weren’t hers got jumbled up at some point.
More importantly, they were feathers frozen in time and stayed frozen in the air when Fluttershy pulled them off.
“Why do these feathers not like gravity?” Fluttershy asked. “Is this one of those new technologies?”
“Oh, yeah! I almost forgot. There was some guy freezing everyone in town with time magic or something,” said Dash. “I don’t know how serious of a problem that is, but—“
Twilight walked up and grabbed the feather, looking over it briefly before bringing both of them to her cauldron.
“Oh, it’s a complex time matrix spell for displacing spacetime over a long area. Those seem overpowered at first, but they’re actually incredibly fragile.” Twilight dropped one feather in the air, the feather hanging there rather than falling. She pushed the second one deep into the cauldron. The liquid flashed and the first feather began to fall normally. “There! That should unfreeze everything that was frozen.”
“Huh. Well, that was easy.”
In a bout of quick thinking, Derpy just barely managed to dodge the spell that had covered the town moments ago. Or maybe it’d been dumb luck. Either way, it turned out if you were under one of those nexus points, you’d be safe.
All the other ponies in the attack team were frozen in time. Heck, literally everything else in town had been frozen in time. It was down to Derpy and Raindrops now, standing on the road across from the lich. If they got frozen, they’d have to wait for somepony else to show up to rescue them. On the bright side, it’d seem like an instant.
“It seems I need more work before I scale this up to the entire globe,” the lich declared. “But I must thank you for exposing the flaw in my spell! It won’t be long until I’ve rectified this. Soon we won’t need to use the word ‘soon’ ever again!”
They probably only had one chance left to stop this guy. From the sound of things, he’d be leaving soon and then what? If he got away, he’d come back later even more dangerous.
It seemed unlikely they’d be able to defeat a wizard with this kind of magic, but Derpy had to try. Rainbow Dash believed in her and, like Dash said, that was better than nothing!
With no grand plans left, Derpy rushed in, hoping she’d be just fast enough to get his amulet away from him. It’d be so much easier a fight if she could manage at least that much.
The lich laughed as Derpy lunged forward and thrust at his phylactery. He pulled to one side, bringing the amulet out of the path of Derpy’s spear, but allowing it to dig into his chest. Because he was undead, there was no resistance or blood, the spear went straight through like paper. At the same time, he cast a spell, but nothing happened.
The lich suddenly stopped laughing.
“Hold on.” The lich looked himself over. “Something is very wrong! No! Did somepony really—?!”
“Everything’s going back to normal time!” Raindrops called out to Derpy. “You must have broken his concentration or something!”
“I did?” Derpy looked left and right.
Everything was going back to normal. A few ponies tumbled to the ground as they restarted, but most of them just resumed casually walking about as though they noticed nothing.
This was seriously working! Maybe Derpy could do this, just like Rainbow Dash said!
“Concentration?! It was clearly— Oh, wait. I probably shouldn’t tell you that.” The lich tried pulling back, having trouble with Derpy in his way. “I knew I shouldn’t have hit that crow! Oh, it’s ten years of bad luck for me!”
“More like ten years in jail!” Derpy pulled him closer. “Or however long you go to jail for this! And don’t think you can just freeze yourself in time until your sentence is up!”
Derpy grabbed the phylactery and kicked the lich backward, her spear coming out as easily as it had gone in.
“No!” The lich staggered back. “Stopping time was my main thing! Without that—!”
Derpy threw the phylactery to Raindrops and rushed in, hitting the lich over the head with the blunt side of her spear. All the ponies around were either cheering for her or looking on in total confusion, depending on when they’d been frozen.
With one last, wide swing, Derpy hit the lich’s head with an audible crack. He fell to the ground, unconscious and unable to get back up without his amulet.
“You did it, Derpy!” one of the ponies cheered. “Derpy Hooves defeated that lich entirely by herself!”
“Derpy! Derpy! Derpy!”
All the ponies around were cheering her name now! Even the ones who had no idea what was going on started cheering just to fit in.
Embarrassed at the attention, Derpy rubbed the back of her head and stuck out her tongue, smiling.