After Dash had gone into the forest she almost immediately regretted going alone, she almost felt like she was being watched the entire time, though she probably was. Even in her regrets of going alone she did, remembering all the things she had learned in the past. She would hear random whispers in which seemed to come from all directions, and all distances, even feeling like the source was right in her ear once, this freaked her out beyond belief, because for one, she didn't only hear a voice, but she felt a cold breath go into her ear. Telling herself it was the wind she continued however.
Walking was annoying to Dash, but she couldn't risk flying, because she knew that the moment her wings went out, something would try to break them, literally. "That's silly Rainbow, get a hold of yourself. This is going to be easy, all I have to do, is get to the old castle, and get the heart from the very center of the large, creepy, crumbling castle with death traps everywhere you turn," she said to herself, paused a bit, then continued, "Yeah, no problem, but why would you put so many deadly traps in a place you are going to live in yourself, its almost like you planned on abandoning it so that your enemies would fall into these death traps." Dash gulped, curious if there were any real enemies to the Princess, and whether or not she should be worried about it.
Dash paused her stride, realizing she was talking aloud, she looked around, checking to see if anypony was around to hear that. Seeing nopony, she sighed a breath of relief, but was quick to regret that sigh. "I heard every word." She heard from all directions, "And I delight in the possibilities I have to frighten you, maybe I can use you as my host, my vessel, after all, I don't need a horn to do magic anymore, I can simply will it to happen with my mind." Dash was frozen in terror, wondering if what she was hearing was her own mind playing tricks on her or not. Gaining a small amount of control of her body she decided to run, still keeping her wings tucked for fear of losing them. "Come on little one, you know you want to embrace the power I have, you want to be able to prove you are the best of all, that you don't need a horn to do the magic the unicorns, or alicorns can do." The voice said tempting her to break, "All I need you to do is stop resisting, you can become the most powerful of all, throwing down Celestia herself, and rising to a power even greater than all that exists."
Dash was almost to the point of crying, she felt the water welling in her eyes, the voice not outside of her body anymore, it was now within her own mind, almost like she wanted herself to give up, to stop fighting, to give up friendship, and become loyal to only herself, nopony else, but she knew it was not the case, she cared for her friends far too much, and she could not let this happen. Doing her best to block out the voice, she opened her wings, and took off, much to her surprise, her fears were wrong, only a trick of terror. Only one thing stood in her way now, she was in such a haze of terror that she lost her way. And before she knew it, she was being forced to slow down, smelling a foul gas, she knew that she was about to enter the swamp on the other side of the forest. She was about to completely turn away when she saw something in the swamp, it looked familiar, but the haze around her prevented her from making it out properly. Dismissing it, thinking it was a terror trick on her mind again, she flew away from the swamp.
Once she was far enough to speed up again, Dash bolted strait up, taking about 2 minutes to get a good height then scanned the area. She located the castle, her mind mostly clear, she decided she was going to make up some lost time, as she figured she was now 20 minutes away from the castle at her normal top speed, she started to fly strait down as fast as she could, building up pressure around her, she started to see the familiar cone form around her, picking up more speed, she started to see it forming a U around her, then she felt her adrenaline burst, like that of a fearful adrenaline in which temporarily increased ones stature, then suddenly everything became a blur of color, knowing she hit the incline of her speed she turned to make her way to the castle. Blinking she was able to regain full vision, and saw that she was only about a minute if even that from the castle, everything else below her seemed more like a dark shade of greenish blue zipping by.
She was about to come in for a smooth landing, when she heard something, not very loud, but nothing would prevent her from hearing it. It sounded like twilight saying 'its over Rainbow Dash!' This made Dash lose all balance in both her mind and body, she didn't even bother to slow down when she hit the ground in a giant cloud of dust and stone. Oddly enough Dash was unharmed, which she did not care about, she didn't even care if the landing shattered every bone and cell in her body, she felt like nothing without Twilight, she was lost, an empty shell, hardly even living anymore. Dash opened her mouth to ask why, but no sound came from it. She tried again, but was interrupted by a peculiar laughter, it sounded like Applejack. After the laughter subsided she heard in Fluttershy's voice "I claimed Twilight for my own, I stole her heart from you, what are you going to do about it?" The voice switched to Pinkie Pie's voice, "You might as well give up, we don't need you anymore, you left Ponyville without us, so obviously you don't need us either." Then as the voice faded, Dash saw a figure walking toward her, but when it came into view what she saw looked like Twilight, except behind her walked up Fluttershy. Dash wanted to yell to give Twilight back to her, but she couldn't speak, her voice failed her. She collapsed, and then, in Twilight's voice she heard, "You know, this would never have happened if you would have accepted the offer."
Dash started to cry, feeling like she was nothing, not wanting to deal with anything, she just wanted it all to end, cursing herself for leaving Twilight alone in Ponyville, not telling her what she was going to do, and asking for help. Maybe then, she would still be with her, and not have lost her. She was about to concede to her foe, when she felt a tugging, almost like she was being pulled out of reality. She felt the tug again but this time she was pulled into darkness, nothing else was around her, but it was not a scary darkness, it was soothing, almost like she was being cradled. She closed her eyes, about to give up, when she heard, "I told you that you were under my protection, everything you just saw was an illusion, a dream of sorts, you must wake quickly, or you will be in danger, you are still traveling at an extremely high velocity, now go, find the heart, quickly." With that, knowing it was Luna who saved her, she woke up, and instantly knew she had to slow down, like now, but with no other choice, she pulled up quickly, making a large loop, slowing down while doing it, and landed gently on the ground. She wondered how she had gotten into that situation, but continued on anyway, she had a heart to find.