Reaper: Requiem's Reflection

by Ise no Kami

Grief

"Aw, sis, do we hafta leave?" Apple Bloom stared at her big sister with wide, sorrowful eyes, along with her two friends.

"Relax, sugarcube," Applejack reassured the three fillies. "Y'all be safe in the Crystal Empire. We've got friends there who'll make mighty sure o' that. 'Sides, all your friends will be there with you. It'll be just like home."

"But it won't BE home," Sweetie Belle protested.

"Is that what's botherin' y'all?" Applejack inquired. "Well, y'all can come back once this mess gets sorted out." Even as she said this, the Element of Honesty could feel her own words ring hollow. This mess...it would take a miracle to fix things now. It was much more likely that they would all just be stuck in the Crystal Empire forever, trapped in a prison of their own making, in constant fear of the death that lay outside its walls.... Applejack swallowed that thought. These fillies were still full of hope, and she didn't dare say or do anything to snuff that out.

"What're we all waiting for?" Rainbow asked, impatiently tapping her hoof on the station floorboards. "Let's get going, before the train leaves without us!"

"But I don't wanna just run away!" Scootaloo protested, looking at her idol with a look of determination. "I wanna take 'em on with you!"

"Uh, listen, I get where you're coming from," Rainbow mentioned, her impatient glare replaced with a look of genuine concern, "but that might not be the best idea."

"Oh, come on! We can take 'em!"

"Rainbow Dash is right. Facing those beasts is nothing short of suicide."

All three fillies turned, terrified, to see that Sombra had come onto the platform with them. Rainbow and Applejack also turned to the once proud king. As she turned, she noticed Scootaloo race away to hide behind a nearby post. A small part of her couldn't help cracking a smile. As tough as she acted, her "little sister" still had a long way to go in terms of bravery.

"Uh, Mr. Sombra? Might wanna keep a low profile when we get to the Crystal Empire," Applejack warned. "The crystal ponies won't be too happy to see you. Best not to cause a panic."

"I understand," Sombra replied. "I have some spells that should help, so long as I stick to the shadows. In any case, we'd best board our train before it leaves without us."

"That's what I said!" Rainbow hovered over to Scootaloo, and put a comforting hoof in her purple mane. "C'mon, Scootaloo, we've got a train to catch." The young filly looked into her idol's eyes, before giving in and boarding the train. Her friends weren't far behind her, followed by the adults.

As Sombra stepped onto the train, a chill ran down his spine. He turned around, scanning the train platform for some sort of threat...but he found nothing. As the door closed, and the train sped off, he disregarded his feeling as paranoia, and took his place near his acquaintances.

---

As the train made its way through the vast plains of Equestria, Sombra couldn't shake the feeling he had before. It wasn't even that something might go wrong at any time, though that was indeed a factor. It was more like everypony on the train was his with a sense of somberness at the same time. Each pony he looked at, even the three fillies next to him, were left in a melancholy mood in the face of everything that was happening. And it felt like things were just going to get worse.

Of course, they did. As the train approached the forest surrounding Galloping Gorge, the tracks were suddenly surrounded by heaps of twisted metal. It didn't take everypony long to realize that the previous train had never reached its destination. Many ponies burst into tears, mourning the friends had family they had lost on that train. The rest squirmed with fear, wondering anxiously whether they'd even make it to the safety of the Crystal Empire. The train soon entered the forest, blocking out much of the light from the sickly storm above. The darkness left in its place was a pretty good representation of the collective mood in the train car. Sombra shrank into his seat and ruminated on everypony's collective fear, knowing full well he could do nothing to lift the mood.

Just then, as if just to make things that much worse, the screeching of brakes broke the heavy silence. The train stopped so hard that many ponies were forced back into their seats, while others were thrown out of them. As the train halted completely, panic began to spread among the hordes of ponies within, nearly reaching their breaking point before the train's intercom finally crackled to life:

"Hello, this is your conductor speaking. It appears a massive tree has fallen onto the tracks. If anypony would like to help, please come to the front of the train. Everypony else, just remain calm. We will be back on track shortly."

"I'd better go help out," Applejack decided, rising from her seat. "Y'all sit tight now, ya hear?" She made a beeline for the front of the train, disappearing into the sea of ponies.

"You don't think you should help, too?" Sombra asked Rainbow, who was still seated.

"Eh, Applejack's got it covered," Rainbow replied. "Besides, somepony's gotta keep an eye on these three troublemakers." She reached out a hoof beside her...into empty air. Panicked, she whipped around to see that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were indeed gone.

"How...? We were only talking for a second!" Sombra exclaimed, amazed and terrified.

"They didn't try to see if they could move the tree, did they?" Rainbow wondered. "They already got their cutie marks. They can't still be this stupid!" As the two ponies rose to search for the CMC, Sombra's sense of dread intensified, freezing him in place out of fear of the coming horror.

Oh no.... By Celestia, please, not now....

---

"Oof, stop pushing! Ow!"

When they heard that the tracks had been blocked off, the CMC unanimously felt that they needed to do their part to help out. That was proving far tougher than they expected, however, as the crowds of panicked ponies kept them from getting anywhere near the front of the train. They had managed to force their way through the crowd to the next car, only to find that the ponies there were even more hysterical. Ultimately, they were forced to the outer wall, and pinned there by a mass of panicked ponies. Apple Bloom's heart began to sink. They had no way of getting to the front to help out, nor could they return to their seats. If Applejack returned now, she'd be worried sick...

All of a sudden, the wall behind them opened, and the three fillies tumbled out of the train. Apparently, Sweetie Belle had noticed they had been pinned next to one of the doors, and took the liberty of forcing it open with her magic. "Now we can skip the whole train!" she exclaimed with delight.

Looking ahead, the fillies could see the fallen tree from where they stood. It was truly massive, easily as thick as the train. And they could clearly see one small detail that the conductor left out: the tree was ablaze. That's odd, Apple Bloom thought to herself. Why would it be on fire? Didn't it just fall over? And why isn't anything else on fire? She pondered these questions for a while...until it all clicked in her mind, and her eyes grew wide with terror.

"Uh, girls, why don't we all just get back on the train?"

She was about to race back into the crowd, and her friends were about to protest, but it was too late. A fire burst to life a short ways away from them, leaving Silas there as it died away. The sadism he had shown at Sweet Apple Acres seemed to be completely gone, replaced with a grim determination that was just as menacing, if not more so. In a panic, Sweetie Belle tried to reopen the train door, but her fear prevented her from producing anything more than a weak spark from her horn. The three fillies started backing away, as Silas moved toward them.

"Don't worry, Alice," Silas said reassuringly, his glare fixed on Apple Bloom. "I've come to take you home...where we can finally have our lives back."

"A-Alice?" Apple Bloom asked in fear and confusion. "My name's not Alice!"

As Silas took a step closer, Scootaloo stepped between him and Apple Bloom, poised to strike. She glared up at her adversary with a look that said everything. As cowardly as she was, she knew now was the time to throw that all away. No matter what happened, she would stand and protect her friend. Silas took all of this in...and looked back in disdain. To her everlasting sorrow, Rainbow Dash, still searching the train, looked outside to get a front row seat to what followed.

"How cute." Silas replied flatly, before kicking the poor filly into the air. As she flipped backward through the air, time seemed to stop as she was stunned by the force of the blow. As her senses came back to her, the first thing she noticed was the muzzle of a handgun pressed into her back. She was still too rattled to show anything other than mild surprise...

...and then Silas pulled the trigger.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle could do nothing but stand there, horrified, as their friend was blown away, a fountain of blood spurting from the new hole through her chest. Rainbow Dash was the most horrified of all, watching helplessly as the filly who had idolized her, who she had helped to grow and even come to respect, fell limp into a growing pool of her own blood. Quickly, her sorrow turned to rage, and then that rage boiled over.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Silas apologized. "Come home with me, and we can forget all of this."

Right then, the train door burst open, blown off its hinges by the bolt of rainbow fury that rammed Silas into a nearby tree. Utterly shocked, Silas overcame his surprise to see Rainbow pinning him to the tree, her eyes burning with murderous intent. She let out a scream of terrifying rage before pounding the pyromancer's face in, only letting up when she hit bark instead of flesh. She looked around, just in time to dodge a bullet to the back as Silas rematerialized behind her. She rushed him down, punching and bucking him all over as he struggled to get a lock on her position. Finally, ticked off by the rainbow nuisance beating him down, he set his arm on fire and swung away, sending Rainbow crashing to the ground with a lucky fiery backhand swing.

Rainbow quickly got up, as if the blow had been nothing. Her bright blue coat had been singed black where he had hit her, but she was so furious that she didn't even notice the pain. She rushed at the source of her rage once more, flying through his legs and knocking him over, before bucking him into the sky. As he soared high into the sky, Rainbow soared upward to greet him. However, he soon recovered from the buck, and pulled out his two handguns to fire barrage after barrage of bullets at the speeding rainbow missile. A few managed to hit her-first her flank, then he back, then her chest-but her rage killed any pain she could have felt. A mach cone formed around her, getting smaller and smaller, until she burst into a sonic rainboom. She became a shining rainbow bolt, speeding toward its target. Silas realized too late that his bullets were doing nothing, and the rainbow pony tore a hole through his abdomen.

The gunslinger's body began leaking fire as the attack brought him to his end, but Rainbow wasn't done with him. She immediately turned around to pummel Silas some more, only for him to grab her in his own rage. He set his body on fire, immolating them both, as he took the long nosedive to pile drive her into the forest floor below. The force of the impact blew the two standing fillies off their feet, and immobilized Rainbow with a pain that no fury could negate. With what strength she had left, she turned her bruised and blackened head to her adversary, expecting him to finish her off. Instead, he barely stood doubled over, just as weak as she was.

"Why...?" Silas asked in despair. "Why can't I just have my sister back?" Before he could elaborate, he burst into flames, and vanished.

Rainbow Dash was confused by these last words, but was in too much pain to ponder them. Now that she had calmed down, the full extent of her injuries assaulted her senses. Looking to the side, she noticed two figures, a pony and something taller, approaching the site of the battle. She finally succumbed to her wounds, and blacked out.

---

Rainbow struggled to move as her senses came to ever so slowly. Her eyelids were the first to respond, opening into blackness. No, not blackness, more like a thick black haze that covered her vision. She tried to protest, but only a muffled groan escaped her lips. Thankfully, that seemed to get the attention of someone nearby, who vaguely seemed taller than any pony. The figure knelt down beside her, and she could barely see a familiar strand of yellow hair through the haze.

"Oh crap! You're hurt worse than I thought!" Daniel noted, his voice sounding muffled. "Let's see if I can patch you up."

Rainbow felt a surge of magic energy wash over her, and the haze lifted from her sight. She was in a hospital bed, surrounded by walls made of pure crystal. As the magic washed over her, her muscles began to come to, and she took a look at herself. Under the green hospital gown, her coat had gotten much darker, just a hint of the original cyan showing through the outer layer of singed fur. Looking at a nearby mirror, she saw that her rainbow mane was still bright, but much shorter. No...more like it had been burned off entirely, and was growing back. Something told her that her eyes had also been badly damaged, and were only just healed. Then she noticed that she wasn't the only pony in the room. Off to the side stood her friends, along with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

"Guess I made a bit of a mess, huh," she joked, reassuring her friends that she would be okay.

"We were all worried sick about you!" Twilight told her.

"You two were really messed up," Daniel mentioned. "You're lucky Lyra and I noticed the commotion and came running, or you wouldn't have survived."

That's when Rainbow finally noticed that a Cutie Mark Crusader was missing. "Where's...where's Scootaloo?" She asked, dread seeping into her tone. The room suddenly became somber the moment she popped the question. Without saying a word, Daniel pulled a nearby curtain away. Beyond it lay Scootaloo, sleeping comatose in the neighboring bed while IVs kept her alive.

"I was able to fix the physical damage," Danial explained, "but I couldn't do anything about the shock. She'll live, but she's stuck in a coma."

"When do you think she'll wake up?" Rainbow asked.

"I can't say for sure," Daniel replied bluntly. "There's a chance she never will." He paused to let her take the news in. "If you wish, I can use my new power to show you her dreams."

"I...I'd like that," Rainbow replied, drained of all her normal confidence and cheer.

Daniel closed his eyes and concentrated, and a magical light extended out of his body, first to Scootaloo, then to Rainbow. As the light washed over the technicolor mare, the world fell away, leaving the two standing on a solitary cloud. She looked out into the bright blue shy that surrounded them, and saw Scootaloo flying in the distance, together with a projection of herself. This was truly her dream, the one thing the young filly had always wished for. Watching her filled Rainbow with sorrow, knowing that she was as happy as she'd ever been in this dream world, not knowing that she may never return to reality.

It was too much. Rainbow finally broke down, and wept for hours as she watched Scootaloo live out her fantasy in ignorant bliss.

Comments

[krazykidfannumber2]

Things are just going to get so bad that Equestria would look like the Ashlands timeline I take it?