//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 // Story: Double Dare // by Wordplay42 //------------------------------// Chapter 17- Rainbow Dash’s eyes were shut tightly as she waited for the inevitable pain of the falling boulders to come, waited with bated breath for the end. She had been sucked into a Daring Do novel, and that had seemed miraculous. But now it was all over. She was done for. Time must have slowed down for her. This must be where she was supposed to see her life flash before her eyes or whatever. So time must have slowed down so she could do that. Or the way that bad events always seemed to take longer than normal ones. Still….what was going on? “Rainbow Dash!” That wasn’t Daring who had called her name. Rainbow allowed herself to open one eye, and look up. The rockslide had stopped for the most part, and, she was shocked to see, the very boulder she had been dreading was hovering above her, surrounded with an aura of blue and purple light. Blue and purple? But, wasn’t Rarity and Twilight’s magic….? She looked over to see Twilight and Rarity standing together, their horns glowing, and their faces tight with concentration as they held the rock only inches above Rainbow Dash’s head. “Twilight?” Rainbow said, unbelieving. “Rarity?” “Boulder….is….heavy…” Twilight managed to pant. Rainbow Dash blinked. “Oh, yeah, sorry.” She quickly stepped out from under it, and immediately the aura around the rock evaporated. It fell heavily to the ground where Rainbow had been standing only moments before. “Not just them, Sugarcube.” Rainbow Dash turned around to see Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy all standing around her, their eyes bright and their faces smiling, though their coats and manes were dirty, coated with a layer of dust. Though, Rainbow Dash didn’t suspect that she looked any better. “I hate to break up this reunion,” Daring called. She’d struggled back to her feet, and looked alright now. “But we have more to worry about!” All seven ponies looked up to where Oracle was still hovering. “You brought friends!” he boomed. “How nice! They will be witnesses to my rise to power, and your demise!” “Who is that?” Rarity demanded, staring at the stallion. Twilight shook her head. “Never mind that!” she said. “We have to get the Stone away from him!” Oracle slung another series of lightning bolts at the ponies, who scattered and dodged. Applejack hit the ground, and her green eyes glinted with annoyance. “Ah’m done with this,” she muttered. “Why don’t we all distract him and Daring go for that Stone-y doohickey?” “It didn’t work so well last time!” Rainbow Dash called back. Twilight smiled and flicked her tail. “Yeah,” she said. “But now there are seven of us! We can do it, girls!” Rainbow Dash smiled at her friends, feeling the warmth and the hope that they had brought to this battle. If they all worked together, maybe they’d be able to stop Oracle before he did something incredibly stupid. “Rainbow Dash, can Ah get a lift?” Applejack asked. The blue pegasus smirked. “Of course,” she replied, glad to have her friends back. Both she and the earth pony gathered hooffuls of stones before taking off into the air and beginning to pelt the rocks at Oracle. The stallion yelled in anger and shot bolts at them, but couldn’t hit them. Once he managed to grab Rainbow in the same way had had earlier, but a well-aimed hurled boulder by Twilight’s magic broke his concentration, and Pinkie Pie blasted the shaman in the face with a party cannon that she seemed to have pulled from nowhere. Fluttershy even got into the action, throwing a few stones and helping supply Twilight and Rarity with boulders to hurl with their magic. A tan and grey blur flashed through the air, and everypony seemed to stop their pelting of Oracle for a moment to watch. Daring Do streaked straight towards the shaman, this time before he could think to grab her in midair with his magic. He shot a bolt of lightning at her, but the shot went wild and hit the side of the mountain. In slow motion, the two ponies collided. Oracle screamed, clutching the Stone like it a foal clutching his precious toy which he didn’t want to share. His ghostly wings acted like they were trying to keep him up, but the stallion was too disoriented to think quickly enough. They’d hit him on the head rather hard with some of those boulders. Rainbow Dash and Applejack landed on the ground and watched as Daring and Oracle crash-landed. Oracle lost his grip on the Stone, and it rolled away. “NO!” he screamed, as the white glow flickered out of his eyes, and they returned to their natural almond color. The Stone rolled a few feet from his grasp, sparking like a bad firecracker. He and Daring immediately began grappling with each other, rolling over the dirt to try and reach the sphere. Oracle kicked Daring hard in the jaw and leaped forward, his hoof outstretched. But Daring grabbed his tail with her teeth and yanked him backward, climbing over him. In desperation to keep the sphere from her grasp, he reached out and knocked it away. It rolled a few yards and the ponies began to grapple again. The six Ponyville ponies watched in amazed silence, anxious and fascinated at the same time. Daring and Oracle seemed equally matched – Daring with skill and Oracle with brute determination. Daring got to it first, but Oracle slammed her to the ground. They wrestled, their hooves locked together as they each tried to overpower the other. They were dangerously near the edge of the mountain now. “The Stone is mine!” he hissed in her face. “I will rule Equestria with it!” “It belongs to nopony!” Daring yelled back. “It’s a priceless relic!” “I will not let you take it from me!” Oracle yelled, spraying spittle in her face. “I have waited for too long for this! I am worthy to wield it!” “It’s not meant for us!” They were on their hooves now, rearing, trying to push each other back. Oracle gave a great almighty heave, shoving Daring Do away from himself. The pegasus stumbled backward, and her rear hoof hit the sphere. She toppled over, and the Stone rolled away. It teetered on the edge of the drop off now, ready to roll off the side of the mountain. “NO!” Oracle screamed, his cry wrenching through the air. He threw himself forward, reached out a hoof to grab it – But instead of saving it, his reach pushed it over the edge. The Stone slipped over the side of the mountain, and fell downward. There was a general gasp from the ponies around them, especially as, once he saw it fall out of sight, Oracle flung himself over the edge as well, too obsessed with the Stone to understand his own danger. But Daring was not going to let him go that easily. She leaped forward just as he disappeared over the edge, and grabbed his hoof. Rainbow Dash ran forward a bit to see better. The tan pegasus hung onto the shaman’s hoof, even as he flailed in her grip. “Let me go!” he yelled at her. “You will not keep me from it! Let me go!” “You’ll kill yourself, Oracle!” Daring yelled back, struggling to hold on to him, even as he fought her. “It’s not worth it! I can help you!” “You only want it for yourself!” he yelled at her. “You will never have it! It is mine! Let me go!” “I’m not letting go!” she replied. “I’m not letting you kill yourself for this!” “It is mine!” he screamed. He was becoming hysterical now as he flailed around in her grip. Daring was gritting her teeth, desperately trying to hold on, but Rainbow could tell she wasn’t going to be able to do it much longer. “Let. Me. GO!” He finally lost it completely, twisting in her grip. Daring struggled to hold on, but her hooves slipped on his leg, and there was nothing she could do. Rainbow Dash ran forward in attempts to help her, but it was too late. Oracle fell away, down the side of the mountain, after his precious Stone. He laughed all the way down, until he disappeared in the trees below the mountains. His laugh couldn’t be heard any longer. The ponies all stood there for a long time, Daring staring off down where the stallion had fallen, the others staring at Daring. It was a very surreal moment. Finally, Rainbow Dash stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Daring,” she said softly. Daring continued to stare. “I thought….” She started, but trailed off. Finally she shook her head. “He was corrupted by the power,” she finally said, standing, shaking her mane back. “Who knows how long he’d been ‘connecting’ with that thing. It took his mind.” Rainbow Dash nodded, but she could tell that Daring was still reeling for what had just happened. She had almost saved him. But he didn’t want to be saved. ~**~ Rainbow Dash had wanted to greet her friends, to thank them for saving her life. But on Daring’s request, they flew down the side of the mountain and searched for the Stone. They didn’t find it. Or at least, they didn’t find all of it. They did find several shards that had the same swirling, shimmering colors as the Stone had, but there were nowhere near enough of them to have made up the entire sphere. There was a soft imprint in the ground near where they found the shards, though, as though the ground had opened up and something vaguely spherical had passed through it. “Where did it go?” Rainbow wondered aloud. “Do you think it’s still out here somewhere?” “From what I saw today,” she replied. “That Stone is powerful. If it wanted to hide away, to go back into the earth, then I guess it had the power to do so.” Still, Daring collected the shards and placed them in her pocket. She said she’d take them to the Field Museum in Manehattan and have them looked at. They didn’t find Oracle’s body. They didn’t look for it. ~**~ “Daring Do, it’s so amazing to meet you!” Twilight said, her purple eyes wide, her face plastered with an enormous grin. Rainbow Dash had returned to her friends to hug each of them, and especially to thank Twilight and Rarity for saving her life. “Who are all of you, anyway?” Daring asked, slightly confused about the five ponies who had randomly turned up when they needed them the most. “These are my friends,” Rainbow Dash said. “Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack.” “It’s nice to meet all of you,” Daring said with a smile. “Where did you all come from?” “We’re from Ponyville,” Twilight explained. “But we came looking for Rainbow Dash when she….well, when she disappeared from Shang Hoof a few days ago. We were all there together, and when we lost her, we tracked her down.” “You must be very good trackers,” Daring said, impressed. “To have found her all the way out here.” Twilight laughed nervously. “Heh, yeah, you could say that,” she replied. The ponies began to make their way down the mountains and back to the jungle. As they walked, Daring decided that she’d return to the village and tell them that their shaman was dead. “Do you think there’s any chance that he…” Rainbow Dash trailed off. Daring sighed and shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe I’ll see him again someday. Or maybe not. Either way…..” They didn’t talk about Oracle again after that. But as they walked, a thought occurred to Rainbow. “Daring,” she said. “How did you know to use the pedestal the Stone was on to get us out of the cavern?” Daring half-smiled. “It was written in the note that the sorcerer left in the chamber outside,” she replied. Rainbow Dash looked confused. “What?” she asked. “It was?” She couldn’t remember it saying that. “Don’t you remember?” Daring said. “It said ‘the only place of safety is the place you least expect to find it’. I didn’t get what it meant until we were looking for some way out. He must have figured that there should be an escape, just in case. ‘The place where you least expect’, being, of course, the place where the Stone itself was.” “I figured that out right away,” Twilight said, but saw the look of confusion on Daring’s face and laughed awkwardly. “I mean,” she said. “That I would have figured it out if I had…uh…been there.” ~**~ To Rarity’s chagrin, they walked back to the village where Rainbow Dash and Daring Do had originally met Oracle. It took them about a day and a half to get there, through the jungle. Fortunately, Twilight and the Ponyville group were able to find Swift Water’s village again and get shelter and provisions from them. They were very excited to hear that the Stone was gone, and they absolutely ate up the story of Oracle’s downfall. Though, after she finished telling it, Rainbow Dash noticed that Daring went off to be alone in the camp. She was obviously still shaken over Oracle’s decision. The next morning they set off again and walked back to Oracle’s village. They were more than excited to see them again, but the atmosphere grew sorrowful when Daring Do told them that their shaman was dead. She spared them the details, though, about his fight for the Stone and his vows to take over Equestria. She did present the leader of the village with the amulet that had been given to Oracle by Ahuizotl. They burned it to honor him, though Daring admitted to Rainbow Dash later on that she had presented the amulet to them in order to wipe out any trace of Ahuizotl in case he came looking for Oracle. The amulet in the village might have placed the villagers in danger. “But you could have kept it and given it to the museum,” Rainbow argued. Daring shrugged. “Why?” she asked. “The Alicorn’s Stone is still mostly an old mare’s tale for most ponies. One amulet would cause more controversy than enlightenment. It wouldn’t be worth it.” Rainbow did admit that she had a point. The villagers thanked both Rainbow and Daring in plenty, throwing them a feast and giving them gifts of beads, pottery, and even a few rare pieces they had from their ancestors with rare stones in them. These would be Daring’s new contributions to the museum, Rainbow knew, in lieu of the Stone or Oracle’s amulet. Later on, once everyone had mostly quieted down and Daring was off talking to the village leader, Rainbow Dash was able to catch up with her friends. “How did you find me?” she asked them. “What happened?” “When you crashed into my library,” Twilight said, a note of severity in her voice at the fact that Rainbow had once again made a surprise visit. “I was practicing a spell that turns fictional things momentarily real. Like a picture comes to life. But when you interfered, I hit you with the spell. It reversed itself, causing something real to be placed into a fictional world. Your Daring Do book was on my table, so that’s what you ended up in. You replaced the assistant that Daring was supposed to have in this book. But we came after you, because….well, you remember that rock?” Rainbow frowned and nodded. “Yes….” “Well, in the real story, we weren’t there to keep it from landing on you.” Rainbow Dash shuddered. “So, how do we get out of here?” she asked. Twilight smiled. “So anxious to leave, are you?” she asked. “And I thought you were her number one fan.” Rainbow Dash glared at her. “Of course I am,” she replied coolly. “But even I can get a little too much. Not that I can’t totally take it though.” “Sure,” Twilight replied. “By what Celestia was saying, we should just go back to the real world when the book ends. Spike’s reading through it at the moment.” “So, when does it end?” Twilight saw Daring Do coming towards them, and Twilight smiled. “Pretty soon,” she replied. “Hey, kid,” Daring called to Rainbow. “Can I talk to you real quick?” Rainbow Dash nodded, stepping away from her friends and walking out of the camp with Daring. The adventurer looked tired, but she didn’t seem to be feeling as bad had she had earlier. “I’m going to be leaving,” she replied. Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened. “Leaving?” she asked. “Already?” “Yeah,” she replied with a nonchalant shrug. “I guess I just can’t stay in one place for too long. Besides, Fortune Cookie’s still out there, and I have to get that Phoenix Amulet back. It won’t be easy to track down again.” “I understand,” Rainbow nodded. “You’ll catch him, right? Give him a good punch for me when you find him.” Daring laughed. “Will do!” she said. “Hey, you have a way to get back home?” Rainbow Dash glanced over her shoulder towards her friends, who were talking amongst each other. She smiled. “Yeah,” she replied. “I’ll be fine.” “Okay,” Daring said. “Look, kid, you saved my life.” Rainbow suddenly felt her cheeks grow hot as she blushed. She scuffed the ground with a hoof. “Aw, that? That was nothin’,” she said, trying to shrug it off, but Daring shook her head. “No, really,” she said. “If it wasn’t for you and your friends….Thank you. Thank you, Rainbow Dash.” Rainbow looked up, surprised. She as pretty sure that that was the first time Daring had used her entire name, and wasn’t yelling at her to move or something. Rainbow smiled. “You’re welcome,” she replied. She didn’t know what else to say. “Look, you’re okay, kid,” she said. “You got a lotta nerve. Maybe someday we’ll meet again.” Daring winked at her and turned, started off into the trees, obviously intent on getting on. Rainbow Dash paused for a minute, then called after her. “Wait, Daring!” she said. Daring turned back, looking over her shoulder at the blue pegasus. Rainbow trotted to catch up with her. “Thanks for letting me tag along,” she said. “I’m, like, you’re number one fan.” Daring smiled. “You know what, Rainbow Dash?” the adventurer pony said. “I think someday somepony’s gonna say that to you. And I think you’ll deserve it.” Rainbow Dash smiled big enough to split her face in two, and Daring waved over her shoulder to Twilight and the others, who waved back. She winked one last time at Rainbow. “See you again, kid,” she said, then took off into the sky, flying towards the setting sun. Rainbow Dash walked back over to join her friends. She smiled at them. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “Daring thanked me! She thanked me for saving her life!” “We heard,” Applejack said, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. “And Ah don’t think we’re gonna be hearin’ the end of it anytime soon.” Twilight laughed and half-smiled at Rainbow Dash. “And I think,” the purple unicorn said. “That this is a pretty good ending.” At her words, a white light flashed, temporarily blinding the six Ponyville ponies, and in that second, Rainbow Dash knew she was going home.