Dash flew away from Ponyville as fast as she could, trying to outrun the tower of smoke punching into the sky behind her. She was now several miles away from the town and could still hear the roars and shouts of the rioters, which scary enough got louder the farther she got. She cleared her head of the noise though and headed towards a mountain range, ready for her new life, wherever it may be. I really wish I knew where I was going, she thought, now over the range. She looked around and realized that it all looked the same to her. Geography never was her strong point, but the current path would have to do as stopping and asking for directions at this point was not an option. Ponyville was still too close for comfort.
I guess I could always live with the griffons. Gilda's got a pretty cool place, and she did say she wanted me back as a friend. Gilda it is then. Dash continued flying over the mountains, still lost, and took one final look at her old home. As sad as she was, no tears left her eyes, as no pain in the world could compare to a million years in the sun-- if that still was Celestia's punishment. For all Dash knew it could've been a billion now, or whatever number came next. "Good luck trying to catch me, suckers!" Dash screamed at the top of her lungs, watching the town and ponies she once loved fade into the background.
Dash flew uninterrupted on her path for the next few minutes, only slowing down when the sound of flapping came from behind her. "Huh?" She turned her head around, only to find nopony there.
Another flap came a second later. Dash looked back again, once again finding nopony behind her. "Dumb birds." She returned her eyes to the front, where she found a pegasus royal guard flying backwards a foot in front of her.
"Whoa!" Dash screamed with her head shooting back. She chuckled from how surprised she was. "Phew. You almost scared me there. So, you here to tell me which way I'm going or what?"
The guard glared at her with the usual ubiquitous, serious face they all seemed to have. "By royal decree I order you to stop flying at once!"
"What!? Why?" Dash said.
"Princess's orders. Nopony is allowed to leave Ponyville. Now stop!"
"But... I have to train." Dash gave an obviously nervous smile. "You might not know me, but I'm training for the Wonderbolts, and there's no way I'm stopping today's session.
The guard grabbed her hoof. "Sorry ma'am, but until the investigation's over I can't let you leave."
Dash growled and freed herself from the guard's hold. "I said no!" She set her sights on the far side of the mountain range, at the sea that began when it ended, and tensed her wings. She blasted off towards her target, sending the guard flying back and down from her explosive acceleration.
"Get her before she escapes!" he screamed, falling through the air into the mountainous forest below.
The trees below all began shaking, vibrating like an earthquake was happening. Dash looked down, and watched as dozens of pegasi royal guards shot into the air, all with the same target-- her.
"Uh oh!" Dash increased her speed and flew away. More shot out in front and under her though, filling the sky around her. A pack steadied their flight to her level.
"Stop and turn around at once! This is an order!" a guard yelled.
Dash continued on without responding and kept her eyes at the target, knowing full well it was still miles away.
The swarm around her grew closer. "Stop immediately! This is your last warning."
"Get away!" Dash yelled, after a scream. She bumped herself into a guard to her side, sending him hurdling to the ground along with every guard in his path.
"That's it. Get her!"
The swarm of pegasi dissipated and divided itself into a shell around her. Dash twisted her head in every direction as fast as she could without cracking it in two, trying to keep track of the myriad of attackers around her.
A pegasus dove through the air an inch in front of her.
"Whoa!" Dash braked and shot to the side, catching her breath and trying to keep her heart from shooting out of her chest.
Another pegasus shot past her, this time flying horizontally above her so close she could've sworn their wing feathers touched. Dozens of royal guards readied themselves in the sky around her, tensing their wings like bows and launching themselves as arrows straight for their target.
A pegasi knocked into Dash from the side, sending her screaming the other way. "It didn't have to end this way," he said. Dash retook control of her body and maintained her cool as the sky around her blackened.
That's it! I gotta rainboom my way out of this. But if I do then all of Equestria will know where I'm headed... Dash growled and looked around for another solution. The mountains to the left of her lead into a narrow valley, which from the look of it was filled with enough twists and turns to confuse even her on a normal day. Perfect. Dash sped up to it, hoping as many of pursers would follow her in as possible.
True to how it looked like the valley was only wide enough for Dash to flap her wings with a margin of error of inches. The royal guards chased after her in a noodle like formation, only three to four pegasi thick at its widest. The valley led to a near ninety degree turn every few seconds, to which Dash had no trouble getting herself through, even at her speed. Many of the guards though slammed into the cliff faces during the turns or slowed down so much that they disappeared from view within an instant. Seconds later there were only a handful of pegasi still giving chase, who then muttered something to each other and flew up above the valley. They slowed down but, still kept their eyes on Dash.
"Ha! I knew there was no way you ameturs could keep up with me," Dash said, finally feeling her heart return back inside her chest. She continued on course inside the valley, keeping her speed the same, and smiled confidently. As the seconds passed the guards were still on top of the valley, forming a shell over it, and made no effort to try and get back in after Dash. What are they up to? Did they give up? That's when it hit her. The valley was getting narrower by the second, and in only a few seconds would end.
The royal guards tightened their shell over the valley, doubling its thickness. Dash switched back and forth between looking at the net covering her and the ever approaching cliff face. Stopping wasn't an option, nor was slowing down. She was too deep in to give up now. That's it! You guys asked for it!
Dash rainboomed up and out of the valley and straight into the mass of royal guards, cutting through them like they weren't even there. Whole mountains and ranges flashed by her, and the sound of her attackers faded into nothingness. She kept up her speed just to be safe and continued rainbooming for a minute after she was sure she had won. By then all trace that there were ever any ponies after her was gone, with her now in a still mountainous part of Equestria she couldn't recognize. It didn't matter though, as the sea at the end of the range was now close enough that the individual ships could be seen on it. Dash slowed down, ending her rainboom, "Yeah! Almost there. Sweet freedom, here I come!" and pushed on, smiling like she had already won.
A purple beam shot up from the ground, zipping past her.
"No..." Dash said, losing her breath.
Below her were dozens of unicorn royal guards positioned on the mountains below, with their horns glowing and pointed at Dash. "Fire!" a captain yelled. They fired a barrage of blue and purple beams and shots, all in Dash's direction. She contorted and twisted her body in every way she could as the magical bullets zoomed past her, trying to dodge the current one and anticipate the next fifty all at once. Not one shot hit her.
"More! Don't stop!" the captain yelled, himself firing a beam.
Dash began her dance again to dodge the shots, but found her wings cramping and stopping on their own. A shot hit her in the hoof and covered it with a blue aura. Dash screamed and shook her hoof, but found herself losing control over it.
"Good! Now reel her in!"
The aura pulled her hoof, and by extension her whole body, down towards the unicorns. "Ahhh. Get off!" Dash screamed, using her other hoof to peel off the aura. She used all the willpower she had and tried regaining control of her hoof, still being pulled down. At first it only moved a few inches from her command, but Dash kept on trying, clenching her jaw to the point of nearly shattering her teeth. After what felt like forever, the aura shattered and the hold on her was gone.
Dash wasted no time and sped out of the area, looking straight at the sea. Her wings were now too worn out for a rainboom and beat on their own. She didn't care though, as only a few mountains now separated her from freedom. All she needed was another minute of wingpower, and it was all over.
"Almost... there..."
Dash watched as the sea got bigger, with her smile following in suit. She stopped at the last mountain though, as frozen as the rock beneath her.
"Yep. I'm done for," she said, gulping.
An army of unicorns stood on the mountain with their horns glowing, and behind them a fleet of ships full of an army more. Dash cracked a laugh at how she ever thought she could make it. "But I just wanted to train..."
"Fire!"
Dash didn't bother dodging.
.....????
dang Rainbow is screwed
Well... I... It makes my brain explode just trying to figure out if it's all just a huge prank. Eh...
Man these guys are weak bitches. It takes an entire army to stop the Dash.
. . . Overkill much?
~The lizardman is shocked
That was an ummm... interesting turn of events.
4263502
Well they are shooting to immobilize, not injure or kill her. That is always harder.
4263502
Well DUH. She faced down Luna, Discord, and Sombra... And not only survived, but won as well.
If this were an RPG, she'd be a level 50-something facing wimpy level 10-or-lower peacekeepers. The only way they'll win is with superior numbers.
Oh my gawd......ooh dash you are so screwed
4263543
Mmh.
Aside from that, I think the story coulda went in a very interesting direction if Rainbow Dash actually did make it to the griffin lands. Would Celestia order the guards to continue after Rainbow Dash? Would Rainbow have to live in exile for the decades to come?
How would the leader of the griffins respond to when a bunch of royal guards from Equestria appear in his home?
4263621
Something writen with silly of intent wouldn't go that serious... I think.
4263502 Weak? They kept up with her in full armor. And, this is just judging by appearance, that armor is made out of gold which is heavy. If anything Dash is the weak one here if they had no trouble keeping up.
If she's dead, can I ask pinkie to bake me a funeral cupcake?
4263630
... implying this hasn't gotten serious with riots in the streets, a Celestia who is threatening banishment to the sun, and no hope of mercy.
4263765
Lol this story won't get serious. It's a random over the top story made for the lulz. Nothing more.
4263862 No,serious!Plz?
Well... With all she managed to do... I'm highly impressed! LOL
Well... that escalated quickly.
4263714
If these guards really are as fast as Rainbow Dash, than that defeats the purpose of her being one of the fastest pegasi in Equestria.
Plus, there's really no evidence that the Royal Guard are as strong as you suggest. One, we really don't get to see them actually fight. The only times we see them in times of danger is during Nightmare Moon's return, and the Canterlot Wedding episode when the Changeling Invasion happened. Now with the first one, it's quite difficult to gauge how strong/weak they are since Nightmare Moon is on a level of god-tier abilities. I mean, she is an avatar of the moon and night, and an alicorn.
However with the second part, it's gives us a slightly good idea of just how capable the Guards are. Unfortunately, none of it is really good for them.
They have weapons. They have unicorns in their ranks, thus magic. Yet they're captured by creatures with no such weapons other than a simple charging attack that seems to only be used when diving from high in the air. Yeah they have sticky goo that can subdue them and that they can disguise themselves, but we know that unicorns like Twilight can break the goo as well as cancel out their illusions. And when it came down too it, Chrysalis' army ultimately was able to overpower the Royal Guard and it was up to one stallion and his alicorn waifu to drive them all away with the power of love.
You see where I'm taking this, right? We've yet to see how reliable the Royal Guards really are, and honestly they're not so hot right now. Right now, Shining Armor is the only one that is more than sufficient to take on foes. That shield he produced before? The one large enough to encompass an entire city and handle against hundreds of body tackles before being crushed? Even when it wasn't being handled by Shining at the time? Yeah. Only him.
The other Royal Guards? Not so impressive. In fact I'm really starting to question why they aren't as strong as they appear to be. Take a look at the Crystal Empire episode. Yes, Twilight Sparkle and friends were sent there, but did Celestia really so much faith in them that she wasn't going to sent additional aid to Shining and Cadence in the form of several platoons of Guards? Surely a lot of soldiers would help against a dangerous sorcerer tyrant like Sombra. Heck, a bunch of unicorns could probably slow him down, giving Twilight and friends more time to retrieve the Crystal Heart.
But no, Celestia doesn't. Why did Celestia not send more additional aid? I mean, I know this is supposedly Twilight's "test," but really the guards would have been more on guarding the city rather than going on a chase after the Crystal Heart. That's Twilight's job.
So you know what I think about the Royal Guard? I think they're somewhere between actual trained and just for show. Shining Armor is the only pony that's keeping me from making that a firm belief, but at the same time it's not reassuring me either. He's the ex-captain of the Royal Guard. Since we didn't see any other high ranking officers walking about, it's safe to assume that he's probably the strongest of the Guard.
So that makes me question the strength of the rest of the Guards if they don't even show half of what Shining could do.
tl;dr
We don't really know how reliable the Royal Guards can be because of the two events we see them in "action," we see them getting throw about like ragdogs and were easily subdued by creatures with goo attacks and magic disguises that we know can be countered due to unicorn magic that Twilight displayed to us. So yeah, I don't see why they're perceived as strong. The only competent soldier I've seen in MLP is Shining Armor, and he's CLEARLY above standard when it comes to magical abilities.
Of course, I know that the fandom will just disregard some aspects of the canon and just come up with their own headcanons to explain or fill in the gaps. Like the fanon's Royal Guards being more strong than the actual canon's Royal Guards.
4264106 Yeah, I mean, that got out of hoof fast.
4263543
Also: truth.
Almost there Dash, almost.
What we aren't told is that the guards were actually Changelings hired by Celestia for their sheer numerical strength.
Rainbow Dash should have tried when stopped, to try and say they she was afraid that the Town was being targeted by a Serial Prankster and anyone would be a target. then turn back and do another Cake Prank....on her self. that way the ponies blame a Unknown Serial Prankster and she would be ok.
4264176 Regardless of what is canon and what general fanon says it is, right here and now, in this instance, the guard was fast enough to not only keep up with Dash but do capture formations while wearing armor.
Besides, why care so much anyways? This is fanfiction, the only time you should get worked up about it is in the bad fanfictions where the main character is a Gary Stu.
4263506
That's not overkill. That's "Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned a valuable lesson that pranking you with with a cake is not a good idea" kind of situation. This is good lesson and no resources spent for it are spent in vain.
4265091
I'm not getting worked up. Just explaining my view on this part.
And if that's the case, then why do you care about what I said in the first place? I said my comment that makes sense to a certain degree. My comment isn't illegal, so I don't see why you had to step in the first place.
4265269 Honestly? I don't. But after seeing all that hard work you put into your reply I couldn't just say quiet, it would've felt rude to put all of your time and effort to prove that Rainbow Dash is the fastest Pegasus and that the royal guard sucks to waste by not saying anything.
4265306
Alright then.
But riddle me this then. If you really believe that these Royal Guards are as fast as you say they are due to the fact that they're able to catch up to RD with all that gold armor on, then explain to me why the skies of the town aren't filled with a dozen platoons of white-flanked Wonderbolts. Surely if this is such a huge crime against Celestia, then there would be white, stallion, Wonderbolts. And the Wonderbolts are the best of the best fliers, and certainly if the Royal Guards took off their heavy armor, they would be the best of the best fliers.
4265331 Look, buddy, you're taking this too seriously. You are trying to put fact into fiction, reality into fantasy. Don't try looking so far into it because you're not going to find anything. Enjoy the fiction for what it is and not what you think it should be.
4265486
Then I don't see why you tried to dispel my comment in the first place. Look, you and I have been spamming the comments with our meaningless argument. I believe it really would have been for the better if you didn't respond to earlier comment like you said.
It's pretty obvious that you're not gonna change my thoughts on this. It's clear here in the chapter that the Royal Guards couldn't 1v1 Rainbow Dash, and that's my final stand.
And meanwhile Discord is watching all this and smiling as wickedly as the Grinch when he was still trying to steal Christmas, "Oh Celestia, I'm baking a cake just for you..."
Really, this can't be a prank anymore. They're serious.
Even though it's Celestia's fault for walking alone. Imagine if it had been an assassin! Observe!
*Alondro goes back in time to just before Celestia arrives at the cake, jumps out of the bushes and stabs her with a God-Slaying McGuffin. Goes back to the present.* See how easy that would have been?! Celestia needs to be more cautious in the fu-... *realizes he kinda killed her and she's dead now* ...uhm, I just don't know what went wrong?
4263998 And they kill Rainbow Dash. And she's dead. Forever. And then Celestia gets the taste for blood and becomes a psycho tyrant and slaughters ponies by the millions for her own amusement, and Discord is forced to become a hero and slay her before she drinks the blood of a thousand fillies to fulfill her dark pact with Satan and become the Vampire Queen.
Seriously enough now?
Now I'm convinced that Dash is having a nightmare. There is NO way the guards could guess where she was going after she rainboomed and beat her there.
4265652
They didn't have to beat her there. They couldn't have been there all along, waiting...
4265660
I don't see how they would know exactly where she was going to be. It's all WAY too convenient. Rainbow could have gone just about anywhere, yet there are a bunch of guards EXACTLY where she has just decided to go. You've got Rainbow making quick unpredictable decisions on where she is going, then "magically" guards appear where she went. If you had explained Dash was going to places she was very familiar with, that her friends would know about, then I could see guards already being there. In that case, the guards suspect Dash and they're covering all of her "known hangouts". But Dash just decided to head for the Gryphon lands - why would there be so many guards there already?
You could possibly explain it by Dash having bad luck and running into an existing force investigating something at the Gryphon border, but you haven't explained why the army was already there.
And yes, I need some sort of logic in my stories, rather then "an army appears and captures Dash".
4265719
Here's something that might wash that bad taste out of your mouth:
Twilight might've told them where to go if she remembered about Gilda.
4264176 I always assumed Alicorns handle the major threats themselves and the "Royal Guard" is just Celestia putting her harem in armor to go down better with the public.
I can't wait for the deconstruction where Celestia has to go before Parliament and explain why she spent tens of millions of bits mobilizing most of the royal guard to stop... a prankster.
4266242
That's always a fun theory to work with too.
4265719
She ran into an existing force that was stationed next to the Griffin border. It'll be explained in the next chapter.
4266242
I approve of this theory lol.
If I was Dash after all this crap I'd walk right up to Celestia, admit I did it and go on an epic rant about how insane everyone's acting and how overblown this situation has gotten using language that would make the most foul-mouthed sailor blush.
It's probably a good thing for Rainbow Dash that I'm not her.
I know this is probably one giant prank to get back a RD but Id really like to see her "rainboom into the ground" just to really stick it to all the others.
4263862
From the looks of things... I am started to doubt that.
Geeze... They certainly went nuts...
~Skeeter The Lurker
4263862 I warned you, he fired clearly lethal magic bolts right at her, and honestly this could turn into a great adventure story, it isn't even comedic so to say, i'm biting my nails wanting to know what happens next, I want. To. KNOW.
Which is something I almost only get from Adventure stories and never from Slice of Life stories.
4283441
The bolts weren't lethal. They just allow the unicorn firing them to control the part of your body they hit.
4283609 I'm going to say this once more: You really should make this into an adventure fic wherein Rainbow Dash has to flee the country.
4283621
Sorry dude but that's just not the story I imagined when thinking of this. Dash trying to flee Equestria would be a cool story, but it wouldn't be this story.