The beginning of the end.

by BAR0SS

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"So, when do we start training?" the all eager Dash asked with hope.

"Tomorrow." I responded shortly, causing her to loose her enthusiasm and slump her shoulders.

I turned sat back down and began to massage my left wing, not doing it properly because I was grumpy with the sudden turn of events that have thrown my one peaceful life out the window.

"Uh, I don't mean to intrude but..." Dash began, but I cut her off.

"Then don't!" I exclaimed and continued with my wing.

"I was just going to ask: How did that happen? You once had the best wings in all of the land. But now they look like they never get used." she said.

*SIGH* "They don't. Ever since I ran from The Wonderbolt's, I have had them tightly folded at my sides. Ever since that night, I just never had the motivation to actually use them." I explained.

"But, then why are you caring for them now?" she asked.

"Because I can!!!" I shouted at her, causing her to scurry back again.

Dash looked to me with both shock, concern and hurt mixed into a single expression. I noticed this, but I didn't care.

"And don't worry about me. I will help you with your stupid training in time for the next backstabber entrance exam." I said with as much venom in my voice as I could. She looked extremely hurt.

A moment passed of her watching me. I was still just trying to massage my wing, but I was too frustrated to do it properly my self.

Seeing my struggle, Dash walked back over and tried to help me out again, probably to try and make me feel better. But I moved away as she did.

"Just go away and come back tomorrow!" I fended her off as I got up and walked over to the window.

I heard Dash sigh before I could hear the clopping of her hooves as she left the room. I rested my head on the open window and watched as Applebloom played around with her two friends.

'Great, just great. Not even famous any more and I'm still getting blackmailed by a nutjob of a fan.' I groaned in my head as I sat and thought about what happened.

I couldn't help but think badly about the rainbow coloured mare for putting me in this position. I could picture in my mind, me calling her every abusive and hurtful word in existence, and feeling good about it in thee process.

I sat like that for a few hours, But I was interrupted from my angry thoughts as I heard somepony else walk into the room. I looked over my shoulder and saw Braeburn, standing in the doorway.

He looked like he had been doing a lot of hard work, but he also looked concerned.

"Slash! Applejack, Big Mac and I have been lookin all over for ya. Big Mac said that ya got really angry and stormed off. Are ya..." he continued, but stopped as I turned back around and rested my head back on the window.

He looked to my bed and saw my old flight suit sitting on the ground. He also spotted something even he has never seen before.

The photo.

He picked it up and sighed as he gazed upon it. "I'ma take a guess and say that Dash knows who you are now?" He asked.

"Worse, she's already blackmailed me into training her in hopes to make her better." I said dejectedly.

"But how ya gonna do that? Ya can barely fly yerself as is." Braeburn said as he thought to himself.

"She knows that I don't need to be able to fly myself, she just wants me to give her advice on how I used to help train the recruits from when I was a Wonderbolt. And in return, she said she will keep my identity to herself." I explained.

"She cant do that! Yer a living, breathing pony, and ya are entitled to some rights!" Braeburn exclaimed.

"Look, just let it go. I will handle it." I said.

"But..."

"No. If she wants blackmail me, I'm going to make her work for what she wants." I said as a thought hit me.

'She wants me to train her, I am going to train her. But it will be the most gruellingly difficult training she will ever undergo. And if she doesn't quit, then she will deserve to be a Wonderbolt.' I told myself.

"Alright Pardner, just be sure ta let me know if this sort of thing happens again, or if ya need help." Braeburn said as he turned for the door.

I walked over to where Dash had just left my old flight suit and picked it back up and put it back into my saddlebags, along with the photo.

I looked back out the window and saw it had actually started to become dark. I pulled out my pouch of bits from my saddle bags and held it under my wing. I then made my way back outside.

As I did, I spotted Braeburn, Big Mac and Applejack finishing up the harvesting for the day. They were pulling carts of apples into the barn. Twilight was there too, but she looked like she was going to get ready to leave.

I walked over to see if they needed an extra hoof. "Hey, do you need help?" I asked.

"Nah, but we are going to need your help again after the weekend." Applejack said.

"Ok. Well, I'm going to go into town and stop by a bar for a drink." I said.

"Just don't be home back too late." Applejack said. I nodded to acknowledge her.

"I'll walk you to town." Twilight said. With that, we began our walk down the dirt path that led to Ponyville.

After a few minutes, I decided to strike up a conversation with Twilight.

"So, Twilight. How did Princess Celestia's student wind up all the way from Canterlot?" I asked.

"Oh, she sent me here to study the magic of friendship just under 5 years ago. But she truly sent me here to discover the Element's of Harmony with my friends so we could..."

"Release Princess Luna from Nightmare moon." I said, cutting her off.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"I have a lot of free time in Appleoosa, reading the news paper is just one of my hobbies I do to fill that time." I said with a smirk.

I lied.

I was still apart of the Wonderbolt's at that time, and we were supposed to be helping the royal guard search for Princess Celestia once she was declared missing. About 2 weeks after that incident was when I had my heart broken and ran from the team.

"So, how is Princess Luna then?" I asked.

"She came to Ponyville last nightmare night, and it seemed as if she was having a hard time fitting it, but my friends and I managed to help her." Twilight explained.

"Well, good for her." I said.

"So, What's your story, What led a pegasus to become an apple bucker?" she asked.

I sighed. "I mean you no disrespect Twilight, but I would appreciate it if we did not go there." I said as I looked down.

"S-Sorry." she said as she looked down as well.

"It's ok." I said.

We continued the rest of our trip talking about all the things Twilight has done with her friends over the years. I find it cool how they managed to take down a giant group of changelings before they got captured.

But before we knew it, we had arrived in front of Twilight's library.

"Well, this is my stop. I'll see you another time?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, sure. I'll be in town for about 2 weeks so... until then, good night." I said with a smile.

"Good night... *giggle* New guy." she said, laughing a bit.

I rolled my eyes as Twilight went inside her home and closed the door behind herself, leaving me alone to my thoughts.

'Now, to find that bar.' I said to myself as I began to look around my surrounding area. It had gotten pretty dark, so all I had to do was look for a building that had its lights on and lots of ponies in it.

I walked around of a bit, but found nothing. I didn't know if I was just missing it, or if I had actually lost it. I could not find anywhere that looked remotely similar to a pub, bar, club or even a just a liquor store.

I let out a sigh of defeat as I began to make my way back to the Apple resident's farm. When I hit the dirt road that led back to the farm, I stopped.

I looked back to my wings and shrugged. I put my bit pouch in my mouth before I opened my wings and took off from the ground. I hovered for a moment before adjusting my wings downward thrust and began to fly forward.

I continued down the path, but this time in the air. I wasn't even going that fast simply because I was just enjoying the wind in my feathers again.

I had to admit, after all those years on the ground, it felt good to be up in the air again. Even if it was only about 10 metres off the ground. I was enjoying myself so much that I failed to hear the sound of another pair of wings behind me.

"So?"

"Agh!" I shouted as my wings cramped up before I fell back down to the ground and landed with a thud. "Ow."

"Dude, are you alright?" I looked up and saw Rainbow Dash hovering above me. I frowned and got back up to my hooves before continuing to walk along the dirt path. "Hey, wait up." Dash said as she landed and walked beside me.

"Isn't there somepony else you can go and annoy, or are you just here to blackmail me again?" I asked in a grumpy tone with my head low.

"*Sigh* Look, I'm..." she began, but I cut her off.

"No! Don't say you're sorry when you're not. Just buck off and come find me tomorrow!" I shouted before I galloped ahead.

Dash didn't chase me. She just stood there and lowered her head. I could have sworn I also head a sob come from her.

As I continued to gallop, my anger overtook me and I spread my wings and quickly shot up into the sky.

"FFUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK!!!!!!!" I shouted as loudly as I could as I flew as fast as my wings could take me.

I could feel the unbelievable amount of strain and pain my under-used wings were giving off, but I pushed through and continued to fly as fast as I could.

But soon, my wings were unable to take any more and began to cramp, so I landed somewhere in the trees of the Apple family's farm and sat down, breathing heavily through my nose.

I felt my blood rush to my head, but I ignored it as my thoughts swirled around the menace with the rainbow mane.

'Just who does she think she is, to blackmail me then try and suck up to get my good graces?' I asked myself angrily in my head.

I sat there for about an hour, just thinking. This kind of behaviour is normally bad for me though, so I thought better of it.

I got up and began to slowly stumble my way back to the Apple's house. I didn't even know if I was going in the right direction, and quite frankly, I didn't care at the moment.

I kept walking for a while, but I was cut off from my thought when I heard the sound of voices in the distance.

Following the sound, I crept in that particular direction until I came across some sort of weird machine.

"Hurry Flam, we must load as many apples as we can before morning." said a voice.

"Calm down Flim. Morning is not for another 10 hours. We have time." said another voice

I walked around the machine and saw two taller unicorn stallion levitating apples of the Apple family trees and loading them into barrels.

'They're stealing Applejack's and Big Mac's produce!' I shouted to myself in my head. 'I need to stop this now.'

"Hey! What do you two think you're doing!?" I shouted out, causing both unicorns to fumble their magic and look to me with alarmed looks on their faces. That when I got a good look at them, as they backed into the moonlight.

They both had a very light olive colour coats and had red manes with white stripes. One had a cutie mark of an apple with a slice missing. The other unicorn's cutie mark looked like the missing slice for the first unicorn's cutie mark.

"Who said that!?!" one of them called out, causing me to raise my eyebrow in confusion.

'They can't see me?' I asked myself before looking around. Thats when I noticed that I was standing in the shadow of a tree, and combined with my black coat, mane and tail, I was basically invisible to them. But I was still able to see myself almost perfect.

I rolled my eyes before stepping out of the shadow and glaring at the unicorn twins.

"I think you two better leave now." I warned dangerously while trying to look as menacing as I could.

But they just began to laugh, which made my left eye begin to twitch.

"Hey, Don't you two laugh at my friend! He could take you both down!" I looked up and Dash landed beside me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Dash in the same tone as I did to the two the unicorns.

"Trying to help you, Duh." she whispered back.

"What do you two pegasi think you can do to us unicorns?" asked one of the twins, causing Dash to whip her head back in their direction.

The same unicorn charged up his magic and shot a bolt at Dash, it hit the ground in front of her and knocked her back into a tree.

"Hey, What the fuck!" I shouted. I was still angry with Dash, but that was cheap and uncalled for.

I galloped over to Dash and looked her over. She had been knocked unconscious when her head hit the tree, but aside from, she looked ok.

I turned back around and glared at the two unicorns again before a thought came to my mind.

"And just what do you think you smirking at." asked the other unicorn.

I continued to smirk as I took a few sidesteps to my right, and sunk back into the dark cover of the tree shadows.

"Hey, Come back here!" they both shouted in unison as they ran to where they saw me enter the shadow, only to find I was no longer in that spot.

I was moving around the darkness as quickly but as quietly as I could, out maneuvering and confusing them as much as I could.

I picked up a stick in my right forehoof and tossed it into another part of the darkness. It hit a tree and both of the unicorns spun in the direction of the disturbance before firing magic bolts at the tree.

I couldn't help but smile.

As both of their magic bolts hit the tree, I shot over and grabbed one of the two, covering his mouth with my forehoof and dragged him back into the darkness.

I pulled him to his weird machine, and figuring I had pulled him far enough away, I punched him the head, knocking him out instantly before leaning him up against the machine.

"Flam? Where did you go?" asked the unicorn that shot the magic bolt at Dash.

I walked up behind him as quietly as I could. I got right behind him before speaking.

"Payback." I said quietly.

"Huh?" the unicorn began as he spun around, but he didn't have enough time to react as I reared up and did a backwards roundhouse kick.

Straight into his cheek.

He flew back and collided with the tree that I had thrown the stick at before.

I walked up to him and saw that he too had been knocked unconscious. I grabbed him dragged him over to his brother and leaned him up against him.

I walked back over to Dash and lifted her unconscious form onto my back before I began to continue to walk in the direction of the Apple's house.

I trudged along with Dash on my back for about 15 minutes before making it back to the house.

I walked up to the door and gave it three knocks with my hoof. A few seconds later, it was opened by none other than little Applebloom.

"Hello Wind Slash. Where have..." she began, but stopped when she noticed Dash on my back. "What happened to Rainbow!" she shouted out.

A moment later, I was able to hear the sound of multiple pairs of hooves galloping to the door.

"What in tarnation happened!?!" Applejack shouted at me as she began to look over the body that was resting on my back.

"She's ok. She's just unconscious from when a unicorn shot a spell at her and knocked her into a tree." I explained.

"Say what? A unicorn?" she asked as she looked up to me.

"A pair actually. A pair with some sort of machine. They were in your orchid, stealing your produce." I said.

Applejack went wide eyed before having an outburst.

"Big Mac, them Flim Flam brothers are back and stealing our apples!" Applejack shouted.

Both Big Mac and Applejack ran out the door and I called out to them.

"They're in your west field!!!" I called out to them. I watched them head in that direction before disappearing into the trees.

I turned and walked inside before carrying Dash up the stairs and into Braeburn's and my room. I walked over to my bed and placed Dash onto it before tucking her in.

I walked back to the door and took one last glance at her before shutting the door. But I turned around to see Braeburn was right in my face.

"Woah! Dude, personal space." I said as I backed away a few steps.

"So now where are ya going to sleep?" Braeburn asked.

"I don't know." I said as I walked past him and back down stairs before sitting on the couch in the living room. Applebloom sat beside me.

"So, what exactly happened ta Rainbow?" Applebloom asked.

I began to explain what happened up until I got back to the house.

'Sweet Celestia I wish I had a drink.'