Rainbow Dash and the Darkwing Pony

by ThomasZoey3000

Watch Out for the Inferno

Chapter 8: Watch Out for the Inferno

It was difficult to see anything in that water, but with Darkwing leading the way, both pegasi finally emeged inside the castle and surprisingly, there were no guards in the area.

"Odd, but then again, maybe Inferno thought no one could sneak in through the canal," Darkwing thought to himself.

Rainbow Dash meanwhile was spitting into the water, "I'll say this again, yuck. I think I got some of that slimey water in my mouth, it's awful."

"Well Inferno and his stupid gang are not known for looking after their own hideouts," Darkwing whispered to her, "now please keep your voice down, just because there's nopony in plain sight, it doesn't mean they're not nearby."

Rainbow nodded, and after shaking the water off, she followed her masked friend through the hallways of the small castle. As they walked along though, Rainbow was still thinking back to the conversation she had with him about his future, or rather the lack of one.

"There has to be a way to help him regain what Inferno took from him, but how?" she thought to herself.

"Focus Dash," Darkwing said firmly to her, which snapped her out of her thoughts. "This is no time for daydreaming, we need to reach your friends, and the only way to do that is get through these hallways."

"Which are full of Inferno's minions," Rainbow groaned as she looked down the hallways. "Hope you got a few tricks up your sleves."

"Do you even need to ask?" He reached down to his belt and pulled out small little pallets, "these are smoke bombs, it'll blind them for about ten seconds, which should be enough time to move from one end of the hallway to the other. Are you ready, or are you going to have another daydreaming session on me?"

"Nope, I'm ready. Ready to save my friends," she said with determination.

And on that note, Darkwing tossed the first pellets down to the ground, which exploded and surronded the hallways in thick clouds of smoke. Unaware to the minions, the pegasi moved quickly until the smoke disappeared.

"What was that?" asked one minion.

"You got me. Maybe somepony was playing with fire crackers again?"

"Which created all that smoke? I don't think so, something's going on here."

They searched the area, but could find nothing to show there were any ponies there, other than the minions. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Darkwing were repeating their steps as they made their way through one hallway after another.

"How many of those pellets do you have?"

"Not many left Rainbow, we can only do two more hallways, then we're on our own."

More smoke pellets were dropped and they slid past more minions without being noticed. Luckily though, they didn't need to use the remaining pellets at that given moment, cause once they were through the main hallway, Darkwing stopped and looked to a set of heavy metal doors.

"What are you doing?" Rainbow whispered.

"I believe your friends are in there," he whispered back. "If you had noticed, many of the doors in this castle are wooden doors, while these ones are metal, and why is that?" Rainbow shrugged her shoulders. "It's because it's to keep prisoners from escaping, and keeping unwanted company out."

"Wow, you're really good at figuring these things out."

"Not really, just thinking like those lame brained idiots, which hurts my brain to be honest," he groaned. "I just need to pick the lock, then we get in quickly before anypony sees us."

Luckily, he had some lock-picks in his belt and after a few seconds of fiddling around, he undid the locks. Moving quickly, he and Rainbow Dash pushed the door open and once inside the room, they shut the door. Inside the room, Rainbow Dash gasped to see a long platform hanging above a deep pit, which seemed to be endless from her viewpoint.

"How far down is that pit?"

Darkwing kicked a rock into it, but there was no sound. At least not for thirty five seconds before they heard a clunk. Rainbow groaned, but Darkwing wasn't impressed, "usually they're deeper than that. I guess Inferno hasn't had the time to finish it."

"Maybe, now where are my friends?"

Darkwing looked up, "uh Rainbow, look up," he said.

She looked and sure enough, she could see a big cage with all her seven friends in there.

"Oh," she said meekily. Then she looked down, their cage was above the endless pit, "so how do we get them down safely?"

"We pick the lock, and get them out, one at a time."

But no sooner had he said that, then one of the minions came in with food for the prisoners. He was surprised to see Rainbow Dash and Darkwing, "I don't know how you got in here, but I'll see to it that you won't leave this place alive."

Darkwing shook his head, and stood in a fighting stance. However, all it took was one throw into the metal door to take the minion down.

Two more came in, but Rainbow stopped them with a firm glare, and the gesture to throw punches at them, "alright you punks, you better let my friends go, or we'll..."

"Really Ms Dash, you would make threats in my castle, I am surprised," said a voice from above them. Darkwing and Rainbow looked to see who the owner of the voice was. It was Inferno, standing on a platform high above the cage.

"Inferno," Darkwing muttered darkly under his breath.

Despite being a rather big pegasus, Inferno flew down to the platform without any trouble. Darkwing's eyes narrowed. Finally after the time it took, he was face to face with the fiend that destoryed his life.

"I must say, I am quite impressed with your performances today. Not too many ponies have been able to enter my hideouts and get to the pit without being found out, but then I shouldn't expect anything less from the pegasus who's been hunting my army down."

"Oh well I'm just doing my best to rid the world of your senselss gang Inferno," snarled Darkwing.

"Really? And here I thought it was about revenage. That is your main reason for being here, isn't it Lightwing?"

Darkwing's eyes popped wide open in surprise, but he quickly regained composure, "I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not Lightwing, I'm the Darkwing."

Inferno rolled his eyes, "really, do you think I'm that stupid? The Darkwing just happened to appear after Lightwing destoryed his own home, and himself along with it? If you had left your enterance for a couple of days, then maybe I wouldn't have figured it out. Granted, you did keep it hidden good for so long, but when you started talking with Rainbow Dash there, it came back to me from the Junior flight camp."

Darkwing groaned. Not only had he put his best and only friend in danger, but he left himself wide open to be found out.

"Now, I suggest you stop fighting, or we'll drop that cage and your friends will fall into The Pit."

"What? Why you..."

"Watch it girl, or they get it."

"He's not kidding, he means it," Darkwing groaned. "Stand down Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow sulked, but did as she was asked. Inferno smirked, then walked over towards Darkwing, "and I'll be taking back those blueprints you stole from me."

"Blueprints?"

"Yeah, I took them from his gang back in Vanhoover when I learned of what they were going to do."

"Yes, and now I would like it back, or else..." and he pointed to the cage.

Darkwing sighed. He lifted his left hoof, pulled off the boot, and using his mouth, pulled a set of blueprints out. He held them out for Inferno, who took them with his hoof.

"Ah yes, the magic cannon. With this, we can steal anything from anywhere without leaving the shelter of our hideout." He cackled as he looked the blueprints over, "no police force in Equestria will be able to stop us now."

"Fine, you got what you wanted, now what about them?" Darkwing asked angerily. "They had nothing to do with this, so let them go."

"As you wish." He looked up to a group of ponies; two pegasus ponies with unicorns riding on their backs, "break the chains, drop the cage!"

"What?!" Rainbow exclaimed.

The unicorns nodded and following their dark master's wishes, they blasted the chain until it broke. The six ponies and one dragon screamed as the cage started to fall.

"You lying fiend!" shouted Darkwing. He jumped up and bucked Inferno a couple of times, making him fly towards the doors on the other side of the platform. He then jumped down to get the cage.

"Darkwing!" cried Rainbow Dash.

She looked down, and sighed with relief as she saw him lifting the cage up, though he was groaning. He didn't even need to ask, she flew up and grabbed a part of the chain.

"Shoot them down!" Inferno shouted to his minions on the platform. "Make them all fall."

The unicorn minions started shooting at them. Rainbow looked to Darkwing, "they'll hit us any second, got anymore ideas?"

Darkwing was going to say he didn't, but then he remembered that they had a weapon of their own, "Swing the cage and hit them hard!"

Rainbow nodded, and together, they swung the cage. It missed the minions and Inferno quite often, but with some aim and timing, they were able to hit them all hard. Once they were out of the area, Darkwing went to tackle the flying minions with unicorns on their backs, he smacked them back, then threw different pellets at the walls. They exploded and blocked the platforms and the second enterance way.

"Darkwing! Can you help me here, this cage is heavy?!" Rainbow cried.

Darkwing flew back and together, they landed the cage on the platform where he finally picked the lock, which allowed the ponies to get free. Once he was sure everypony and dragon were out of the cage, Darkwing bucked the cage and made it fall to the bottom of the pit. The ponies listened as it bounced off the walls, and finally hit the bottom of the pit with a loud bang.

"Yikes, they could've been ugly," said Pinkie Pie.

"Why didn't you guys just use magic to get out?" Rainbow asked curiously.

"We tried, but the cage was magic resistant. Everytime we tried, our horns went out, and Spike couldn't burn the lock off as it was fire resistant too," explained Twilight.

Suddenly, the group could hear pounding coming from the blocked doorway and the enterance way above.

"Those rocks won't keep them back forever," said Darkwing. He looked to Rainbow Dash, "We got your friends out of the cage, now it's up to you to get them out of the castle."

"But what about you?"

"Inferno is my problem, and I will be the one to take him down, once and for all."

"But you can't. Not on your own. I'm staying to help you."

Darkwing looked firmly to Rainbow Dash, "I think not. Our partnership was to last till we got your friends to safety, now they're out of the cage, you can lead them out and leave me to my job."

"But you can't! You might get seriously hurt, and what if you don't make it out of here?"

Darkwing softened his approach and smiled at his friend, "it's nice of you to be concerned for my safety, and to honest, it feels nice to know that somepony does care for me, but this is something that's been coming for a long time and I'm not going to back down from it. I want you to get your friends out of here, and don't come back for me."

"I can't do that."

"You can and you must, it's not worth getting hurt or worse for a pony who has nothing left. Now go, please."

"But..."

"Please Rainbow, just go."

She really didn't want to leave, but in the end, she agreed to at least get her friends to safety. As they were walking out, Rainbow looked back to Darkwing, "being dark and alone can only get you so far, but when you start accepting the help and advice of others, then the real hero in you will finally come out."

She flew off with her friends right behind her, since she was the only one who knew the way out.

Darkwing grabbed some of his exploding pellets, and threw them right at the top of the doorway. They exploded upon impact and blocked the doorway.

"I know you'll come back to help me, but hopefully this will keep you away from me," he thought to himself.

As he turned back to the other doorway, where the pounding was coming from, he thought back to Rainbow's words. Back in the tree, just before she left, and even when she asked him to say his old catchpharse.

"Be a hero huh? Well if this is my last night, I might as well make it count as a real hero."

Extending his wings, he took off to the top of the room and waited. Within moments, Inferno and his gang emerged into the room, "where is that so called hero?"

"Maybe he escaped with the others," suggested a minion.

Suddenly, they all found themselves being surronded in dark smoke. Smoke which was coming from the smoke pellets left over, then they heard him, "I am the terror that trots in the night, I am the phantom that haunts your piano!"

"Shoot him!" shouted Inferno.

The unicorn minions fired blindly into the smoke, but were instead hitting the walls. When the smoke cleared, they looked to see if they hit Darkwing, but they hadn't.

"I am Darkwing Pony!" shouted Darkwing Pony from above.

The unicorn minions aimed at him, but Darkwing wasn't scared. He had a plan all set. He knew from looking at wrecks of other hideouts that Inferno always made the pit to be the structural support for the whole castle, so if it was damaged or even destoryed, the castle would start crumbling down all around them.

"Alright boys, hit me with your best shot, if you can," he smirked.

"Fire!" shouted Inferno and they did.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was leading her friends through the hallways. Minions tried to stop them, but with magic and a little hoof swinging, and fire breathing from Spike, the group of eight were able to reach the front enterance way where the guards were waiting.

"You will not be leaving this..." but they were cut off as Rainbow flew quickly around them, and smacked them hard till they were knocked out.

"Oh shut up already, you guys were giving me enough headaches as it was."

Applejack bucked the lever for the drawbridge, and watched as it came down quickly.

"Alright, you ponies need to watch it going through the thorn bushes, and there are pegasi guards in the air, so hit them hard."

"Rainbow, that almost sounds like you're not coming back with us," said Rarity.

"That's because I'm not. Not yet anyways, I'm going back for my friend Darkwing."

"But Rainbow, he said and I quote 'don't come back for me'," said Pinkie Pie.

Rainbow looked firmly down to the pink party pony, "I know he said that, but that's only because he thinks nopony can help him out of the mess he's in, but that's not true. I can help him regain his old life back, I can help him defeat Inferno, and I can help him be the pony I once knew and cared alot about. Plus I am the element of loyality, so it makes sense for me to go back."

Twilight nodded, "go then Rainbow, but be careful."

"You got it Twilight," and before anypony else could say anything, Rainbow was gone in a flash.

"Come on girls, we better get outside, something inside tells me that soon it'll be too dangerous to be in here."

"Something inside you. What, like a Twilight sense?" Pinkie asked in surprise. "Do you have the same sense I do?"

Twilight chuckled and shook her head, "no Pinkie, call it a gut feeling, now let's go."

The others didn't need telling twice. They followed their alicorn friend out of the castle and stood a good distance from it, but stood ready in case Rainbow Dash or Darkwing Pony needed their help.