Appledashery

by Just Essay

Dashgeneration X

“Let's see...” Rainbow Dash glanced left and right. The yawning caverns of the Diamond Dog undercity stretched beneath her. Dozens upon hundreds of tunnels loomed in every conceivable direction. “If I was deviously torturing a minotaur to satisfy my own ego, just where would I be doing it?”

She came to a lone hover beneath a throng of stalactites.

“And just where are all the dogs, anyways?” Her fuzzy blue forehead furrowed. “Not that I'm complaining, but I coulda sworn Autumn said this place was a city of thousands...”

Her eyelids fluttered... then fluttered again. She realized it was because moisture was tickling her eyelashes. Scrunching her muzzle, Rainbow Dash twirled around, looking for the source of the mist in the air. At last, she saw a cloud of steam venting from a lone tunnel towards her lower right.

Curious, she instantly dove for it, threading her way into the narrow passage and gliding against the waves of fog. At last, when she came out the other side, she froze in place—struck with an air of familiarity.

“I've seen those boilers before...” Rainbow Dash rubbed her chin, then spotted the edge of an enormous cavern beyond. “Ha!” Beating her wings, Rainbow soared ahead, skimming close to the ceiling so as not to be seen by any passing canines.

When at last she arrived at the location of her most recent battle, she found a vast chamber empty of all things—the least of which was an oversized mech piloted by a powermongering dog.

“Shoot!” she cracked forth. Her eyes tiredly followed the path of jagged tank treads in the cracked floor of the room. They led towards what looked like the bottom of a massive, metal-laced vertical shaft. “Of course Top Dog turned tail and ran. For all I know, he's halfway to Saint Fido by now... or whatever in the buck these dogs name their rivals' cities...”

With a prolonged sigh, Rainbow Dash looked aside. In a blink, she spotted a very familiar saddlebag. “Hey! Score!” Swooping down, she landed on petite hooves and scooped the satchel up, examining it. “Seems to be intact. That's good. Boy, what I wouldn't give for some inexplicably useful communications thingy... like a stone that made sounds so I could call in ponies from the world above...”

Just then, a stone talon tapped her on the top of her prismatic head.

Rainbow Dash looked up. “Oh. Hey, Lancie.”

“'Hey' yourself.” The horizontal statue folded his gray arms, frowning from where he remained stuck in the wall by his antlers. “Anypony ever tell you that you're prone to being knocked out cold? Or maybe you're just begging for excuses to fall unconscious just so you can dream of freckles and cream...”

“Nice to know you're so good at sticking around,” Rainbow said while sliding back into her saddlebag.

“Jee. Thanks. By the way, I watched while the Impound Puppies carried you off like a sack of fuzzy blue meat. Just how in the name of all that's full of holes did you get free once more? Not like I'm interested or anything...”

“A sweet little doe swam through a river of dog poop and robbed the dogs of their rusted keys.”

“Okay. Scratch that. Now I'm interested.”

“I've no time to talk,” Rainbow Dash sputtered.

“And yet you do so to yourself all the time.”

“Hardy har har.” Pluck! Rainbow Dash yanked Lancie so that his antlers unstuck from the cavern wall. “Top Dog and his mutt minions still have Iron Will.”

“So?”

“Sooooo...” Rainbow frowned, glancing all around the steamy lengths of the place. “I owe it to the big lug to get him out of that mess. He saved my neck—like—a dozen times over in the span of a minute.”

“Are you certain? I don't even once remember him tagging you out of the bout.”

“I've gotten the rest of the prisoners out, but there's no way in Tartarus I'm leaving him here to marinate in dog drool. Ya feel me?”

“Ah, yes, the mighty and virtuous Rainbow Dash.” Lancie sat in her saddlebag and folded his arms. “You know—have you ever once thought that if you finally gave up your addiction to loyalty, then your life might finally have room for the one and only love that you pine for?”

Rainbow Dash sighed... then sighed again. “Look. I'm here. Iron Will's here. I'm just this close to saving the day.”

“Are you really, Sparky?”

“I try not to think too hard about it all.”

“Yes, well, that much is certain.”

Rainbow frowned. “Look, if you don't enjoy being a backseat to this sort of stuff, you can just hide out inside the saddlebag and call it a night.”

“Y'know, I could have sworn there was a time when we came here to recover a missing piece of myself, not play the role of pony Sparktacus to a bunch of barnyard animals and a grunting bipedal ox on steroids.”

“Yeah, well, live and learn, Lancie,” Rainbow Dash said as she flapped her wings. “Some things take precedent over others.”

“That's a fancy word—especially for you.”

“What, 'things?'”

“The only precedent here is the need to recover that glowing stone leg inside Top Dog's delightfully adorable machine.”

“Lancie, that adorable machine nearly killed me. I saw my life flash before my eyes and...” Her ears folded. “...it was terribly lonely.”

“Does this spontaneous moment of existential epiphany have a meaning at any point?” Lancie asked, examining the stone pads of his paw.

“Yes. These pieces of you that are spread throughout Equestria?” Rainbow Dash frowned. “They're bad news bears.”

“Does that include crapping in the woods?”

“No, it includes the ability to power up rolling metal death machines and enslave tons of helpless creatures.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “This is bigger than me...” She sighed. “Bigger than any of the stuff I obsess over.”

Lancie raised a stone eyebrow. “Meaning...?”

“Meaning I have to find all of the pieces before really really really bad things happen to the ponies of Equestria,” Rainbow said. She frowned firmly and slapped one hoof into the crook of another. “At any cost! Owwwie!” She shook her pained hoof, blushing slightly.

“Yeah. Heh. Good luck with that.”

“Aren't you along for the ride, dude?”

“Not if it involves unnecessary leaps of faith to rescue minotaurs in distress.”

“Look, either we do it my way or we don't do it at all!” Rainbow Dash frowned over her shoulder. “Got it?”

“Pffft. If you say so. Iron Will's practically a hood ornament by now.”

“Please...” Rainbow groaned. “Don't be so negative.”

“I wasn't. I was being literal.”

“Buh?”

Lancie smirked. “Your buddy in concussion-making is presently serving as Top Dog's latest trophy. I know this because I saw him—mounted on the B-Cubed—as the monster mech was being rolled away.”

“Rolled away?” Rainbow Dash squinted. “Rolled away where?”

“Well, I couldn't very well see from the crack in the wall where a certain sparky blue pegasus abandoned me!” Lancie cleared his throat and tilted his chin up. “Luckily, though—these ebil and baddddd shards that you're monologuing about? I can still totally sense them.”

“Okaaaaaaaaay...” Rainbow Dash squinted. “And just where are you totally sensing the energy core of the B-Cubed right now?”

Lancie smirked, then slowly pointed a talon straight up.

Rainbow Dash followed the path of his stone finger. Blinking, she glanced over at the metal shaft at the far end of the cavern. Holding her breath, she flapped her wings and soared over, clasping onto the metal spokes and climbing her way up. As she ascended the shaft, her ears twitched, for she heard a massive roar of thundering barks and woofs and ruffs. A crowd lingered in a large cavern directly above, and over the uproarious crowd she heard one voice standing out above the rest.

“Top Dog...” She murmured to herself.

“Seriously...” Lancie yawned and leaned back casually in her satchel. “Who books this crap?”

Comments

[zaponator]

Rematch!

[Lightning Bearer]

Looks like we'll be going from Kirk Douglas to Russel Crowe.

[unknownbore]

Lancie's a her? Bad sentence parse, I gave Lancie ownership of satchel.

[YoshiFawful64]

“Seems to be intact. That's good. Boy, what I wouldn't give for some inexplicably useful communications thingy... like a stone that made sounds so I could call in ponies from the world above...”

But wait... Dash has already mentioned soundstones... unless she thought it was just an expression?

[Picture_Perfectxx]

"Does that include crapping in the woods?"

I don't know if I should be amused or disgusted.

[LucyHorseThing]

"A sweet little doe swam through a river of dog poop and robbed the dogs of their rusted keys."

Now that I have that image in my head, I can't finish my tomato. Thanks.

[Dash32]

“They're bad news bears.”
Walter Mathow. ah the references.