Equestrylvania

by Brony_Fife

The Wolf Revealed, Part III

She swims forever upward, her black mane and tail trailing behind her like a cloud of ink. Her grey legs pump as hard as she can muster to break the surface above, to burst from unconsciousness into consciousness, but the crushing green ocean of her mind is against her: it rises and rocks and tumbles and slaps and pushes and pulls and refuses to let her escape from its avaricious grip.

Hopeless questions swim by like schools of fish. Why bother escaping? What is the use? Why put so much effort into this when you know you’ll only become that beast again? When it will overtake you to slake its bloodlust?

Her ascension to consciousness is paused. Useless, senseless tears gather in her eyes. A sob escapes her somehow, turning into a mumbled moan as she tastes bile and iron in her mouth. A prisoner when awake, now a prisoner when asleep.

There’s a voice just above the surface of her unconsciousness, a deep baritone—a voice like thunder rumbling ominously in the distance—ringing from a million miles away...

Doooowwwwaaannnnn wurreeeeeee...

Isss willll heeerrr forrr onlyyyy a seconnn…

Something penetrates her. While she feels a sting, it, like the voice, rings from a million miles away. Upon its touch comes pain, then a sense of impregnation. The sting nestles itself deep within her. She sinks, she plummets, screaming soundlessly, into the darkest depths below as the tide rises above her, swallowing her whole, drowning her in her subconscious.

Then the sting touches the Beast. It aches with desire. It burns with anger.

And it grows and grows…

---

Honestly, this part of the base more closely resembles a mansion: red carpeting, ornate wooden architecture, armor worn by Royal Guards past lining the hall. Candles on the walls vomit whatever light they can manage, their eerie flickers dancing intimately with the shadows on the walls. These hallways are long and winding, closed and silent doors on either side of their small group.

The Guards flanking them don’t so much as peep. Shakey and Eagle Eye—both of whom walk in front of Rainbow Dash and Shatterstorm—have mysteriously fallen silent as well. Somewhat hesitantly, Rainbow Dash takes it upon herself to initiate conversation.

“So, uh…” Rainbow Dash runs a hoof through her mane. “Princess Cadance. We’re gonna meet with her, right?”

“Once you get settled in, yeah,” Shakey says quietly, after a pause. “But for now, you’ll be meeting with Captain Rose Blade.”

“Hey, I don’t get something,” Rainbow Dash says thoughtfully. “You guys are always calling Shining Armor ‘the Captain,’ even when he’s not really the Captain of the Guard anymore…”

“He still is,” says Shakey. “Or rather, was. Sorta. He was stationed in the Crystal Empire, since he was their relatively new Prince. He still called the shots over here though, even after Rose Blade was appointed Captain.”

“Huh,” Rainbow Dash huffs contemplatively. “Shining Armor must have been pretty awesome if he could do that.”

“Of course he was,” Shatterstorm says, his voice its usual curt impatience. “He was the youngest Captain of the Canterlot Royal Guard in Equestrian history! A stallion doesn’t earn that title any more easily than a mare could earn the title of Princess. He was just a…” He pauses. Clicks his tongue quietly. “He really was that talented a soldier, one worth looking up to, one worth being inspired by.”

He looks aside at Rainbow Dash. There’s a smile on his face, small but marvelous, as he reverently whispers, “We’ll have more Captains as the years roll by. We’ll always have a Captain, but they’ll never quite be the Captain.”

Eagle Eye cranes his head to give Shatterstorm an approving smile. “Couldn’a said that any better m’self,” he says quietly as they arrive at a heavy set of double doors guarded by a pair of Royal Guards.

Shakey sighs. “I agree, but try not to...”

The double doors open before Shakey can finish his sentence, the initial crack loud enough to make Rainbow Dash jump. The long and ominous creak afterward starts her heart into a horse race.

Behind the doors comes a Crystal Pony, a darling little smile on his shiny, clown-white face. His build and shape are noticeably coltish and cute. He waves a hoof theatrically and bows low, his electric-yellow sausage curls bobbing adorably. Rainbow Dash can’t help but smile girlishly at his mannerisms and appearance.

“Welcome back, Corporal Shatterstorm,” he says in a syrupy tenor. He extends a hoof to Rainbow Dash. “And I bid you welcome, Miss Rainbow Dash. Captain Rose Blade will be pleased to see the both of you. I am Vice-Captain Whisper White. I will see you inside. Please, follow me.”

As he turns to lead them into the chamber, Shakey and Eagle Eye take their positions at the entrance, suddenly standing resolute. Rainbow Dash and Shatterstorm are ushered in by the two Guards behind them, four sets of hooves—five, counting Whisper White’s—lightly trotting on thick carpet. Rainbow Dash notices the controlled calmness in Whisper White’s stride: disciplined like Shatterstorm’s, but demure like Fluttershy’s.

A crystal-studded chandelier big enough to count as a boat hangs from the ceiling chases away the shadows that clung to the group in the previous hall, hanging from a ceiling of various collected paintings depicting the rise of Princess Celestia. The tiled floor is blanketed by some of the richest-looking carpet Rainbow Dash has ever seen (not that she’s some connoisseur for carpets, but still). There’s a door on the far right side, small and red and studded with metal pins, with a gold emblem depicting the Royal Guard insignia fastened on its face. Rainbow Dash wonders where the door leads.

The paintings lining the walls of this circular chamber depict various Royal Guard Captains from over the years. She looks about, but can’t seem to find any painting of Shining Armor, finding it odd that such a beloved figure would be overlooked in this collection. Then her eyes fall on a square-shaped discoloring on the wall, indicating a painting was once hung there. Rainbow Dash pops an eyebrow curiously.

“Captain,” Whisper White says softly, gaining Rainbow Dash’s attention. “Corporal Shatterstorm and Miss Rainbow Dash are here.” He is answered by a quiet crunch of teeth against apple.

On a raised dais sits a regal-looking desk, papers and files strewn all about its top, a basket of bright red apples resting on one end. The filing cabinets are as messy as the desk. The whole thing contradicts the clean and majestic image of the rest of the chamber. The tall, elaborately woven windows behind the desk would probably have given them a perfect view over Canterlot, had it been daytime and before the coming of the Castle.

Looking out that window now is the current Captain, Rose Blade. He turns his head slightly, his long scarlet mane drifting about his neck and shoulders. His eyes, deep green, remind Rainbow Dash of Applejack’s—the only difference in them is the measure of command Rose Blade’s hold. In his upturned hoof is a bright red apple, a bite already taken out.

Rose Blade smiles upon seeing the duo. “Ah! Corporal Shatterstorm! So good to have you back with us.”

Rainbow Dash looks aside at Shatterstorm, who doesn’t exactly return Rose Blade’s welcome. Then again, it’s rare for his mouth to be anything but a frown. “Captain,” he replies, with a halfway-polite nod.

“I imagine your journey back to us has been very difficult,” Rose Blade says as he walks around his desk, his movements slinky and alluring. “It has been some time since we shared any kind of contact, and I do apologize. Communications have all but been stopped completely, thanks to outside interference.” He takes another bite from his apple, chews it thoughtfully, and swallows.

Shatterstorm stands rigid, unblinking, unwavering, respectful in the presence of a superior officer. Finally, Rose Blade smirks. “At ease, Corporal!” he laughs. “You aren’t guarding a door or something.” He sweeps his apple-holding foreleg. “You’re in the company of fellow ponies! Breathe, relax.”

Rainbow Dash looks aside at Shatterstorm again, not exactly expecting him to just melt. He instead looks away shyly.

When she looks back at Rose Blade, his smile is ear to ear as he sighs and shakes his head. “Same old Shatterstorm, always so morose,” he chuckles. “Has anypony seen to feeding you two?”

“Well… no,” Rainbow Dash answers honestly.

Two apples in the basket on the desk glow deep green, are lifted into the air, then brought over to Rainbow Dash and Shatterstorm, who looks at his apple suspiciously. “This, uh, th-this isn’t all that necessary, Captain Rose Blade, sir,” he stammers. “We already... had rations packed for this mission, and…”

Rose Blade interrupts him with a laugh, biting into his apple, chewing it. Then he swallows. “What’s wrong, Shatterstorm? Afraid they’re poisonous?”

There’s a pause. Rose Blade rolls his eyes—a lively movement that stirs some strange fluttering in Rainbow Dash’s lungs—and gives an apple from the basket to Whisper White. Obediently, Whisper White bites it. Chews it. Swallows it. He doesn’t appear to be harmed in any way...

Rainbow Dash looks at Shatterstorm disapprovingly. Never thought she’d be the one to be mindful of manners, but there it is. With a reassuring glance his way, Rainbow Dash bites into her apple audaciously, savoring its taste. Definitely a Sweet Apple Acres apple—she can tell from its juiciness and texture. The taste itself is nearly intoxicating.

“At least one of you knows how to respond to hospitality!” Rose Blade chuckles.

As Rainbow Dash gorges on her own apple, Shatterstorm looks again to the apple in his upturned hoof. Carefully, he bites into it, chews decorously, then quietly swallows it. No sudden chills. No sudden heat flashes. No paralysis. No drowsiness. Just apple.

Rose Blade walks around the two pegasi, chewing his apple, his eyes not leaving Rainbow Dash. “We will be having a more formal dinner later. I hope the two of you are hungry for something Neightalian.”

Rainbow Dash licks her lips at the thought of an actual meal. It feels like forever since she’d had anything to eat besides that shitty hospital food. Her thoughts of delicious pastas and cannoli are broken by a sudden question from Shatterstorm.

“Why are you being so relaxed, Captain?”

Rose Blade looks at Shatterstorm inquisitively. “What do you mean?”

“Considering our situation, I mean. You’re pretty much next-door neighbors to a wellspring of never-ending threats. There are dead bodies on pikes right outside the base. And frankly, I’m more interested in where Princess Cadance is right now.”

A pause. Rose Blade laughs. “Always so sharp. The Castle’s forces slowly whittled away at our morale, to the extent that out of despair and frenzy, many attempted to betray us in order to save their own lives. I’m sure you both saw the unfortunate results outside.”

Rainbow Dash blinks, and the crow holding the eye looks at her. Don’t look.

“Y-Yeah, we did,” she says uneasily, no longer interested in her apple.

“But you’re serving fancy dinners,” Shatterstorm says suspiciously. “That implies you still have a good amount of food. Mutinies and betrayals like that tend to occur most often when supplies run low.”

“They do,” Rose Blade says with a nod. “And for a while, that was true. The Castle’s forces had found our supply stashes and set to destroying each one. Fortunately, I was able to barter with them.”

Ice forms in Rainbow Dash’s stomach at his statement, a look of unease burrowing into her face. “Wait, what?”

Rose Blade shrugs nonchalantly, finishing his apple. “You heard me. We bartered with them.”

Shatterstorm shakes his head, his own concerns rising. “Captain. With all due respect, you’re dodging certain questions. Where is Princess Cadance?”

Whisper White analyzes the two more carefully, his little smile unwavering. Rose Blade’s apple core finds its way into a wastebasket nearby. He looks at Shatterstorm and Rainbow Dash, his grin thin and menacing, as the Guards flanking them both bristle as if ready to fight.

“What I mean is, Shatterstorm, dearest,” Rose Blade coos facetiously, “is that, in exchange for the continued well-being of myself and my troops, we made a trade.” His smile doubles. “The Princess… For supplies and safety.”

There’s a burst of electricity inside Rainbow Dash as anger conquers her senses. Whatever fear had been placed inside her was ejected at Rose Blade’s admittance to Cadance’s endangerment. She finds herself in the air, on her way over to Rose Blade’s smug face, both hooves ready to dig into flesh.

With a loud crash, pain swells up in Rainbow Dash’s right side, flattening her right wing onto her body, twisting it painfully. She lands on the ground with a thud. Through the ringing in her ears swims laughter. Rose Blade’s laughter.

She looks up, her eyes widening as she sees Shatterstorm jerking around like a clumsy marionette. At first, she thinks Rose Blade is manipulating his body through unicorn telekinesis, but Shatterstorm doesn’t glow the way the apples did.

Then Whisper White stops moving, wisping into visibility suddenly. Shatterstorm drops to his knees. Whisper White disappears again, no flash of light, no loud pop—appearing behind Shatterstorm with a thin smile on his lips. He pounds Shatterstorm in the back with an elbow drop, knocking Shatterstorm into a bow.

Rainbow Dash realizes Whisper White isn’t using any kind of magic… he’s just moving unbelievably fast, his sudden movements deadly silent.

She drags herself up to her hooves, only to be grabbed by the Royal Guards that flanked them before, their burly forelegs hooking around her middle. With a squeeze in just the right spot, they give her a painful reminder of her sprained wing; and with a wrenching of her foreleg, she is brought down and kept down.

Both pegasi are brought before Rose Blade, humbled before him. He laughs. “I expected you may disagree,” he says, his snakelike baritone much more condescending than before. “But it was necessary.”

“Necessary?!” Rainbow Dash growls. “You just forked over Cadance to save your own hide!”

“I had almost nothing to do with it,” Rose Blade shrugs, brushing another apple against his chest. “The Princess had given herself up.”

“Likely story!” Shatterstorm spits.

Rose Blade shrugs. “I don’t know why she did it. Really, I don’t, but I didn’t argue.” Taking a bite of his apple, he leans in close to Rainbow Dash’s face, blowing a breath of air over her mane. “But… I can’t help but think.”

He swallows his bite of apple. His smile widens as he extends his free hoof, and with a gentle movement, strokes Rainbow Dash’s face. “What if we were to give them something they’ve been searching for? A prize that could grant us amnesty in their eyes?”

Rainbow Dash bites at his hoof just as he yanks it away, giggling. “Bastard!” she spits. “You’re gonna trade me because you think Dracula’s forces are gonna cut you some slack?! What do you even think you’re doing?!”

Rose Blade shrugs. “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve already lost this war. It’s better to preserve what we have left under Dracula’s rule than to risk losing everything trying to regain what’s been hopelessly lost.”

“So, what? You’re trying to build an empire under Dracula?” Rainbow Dash growls. “You’re crazy.”

“Say what you wish,” Rose Blade says nonchalantly, stuffing an apple into Rainbow Dash’s mouth to silence her. “I’m only doing what it takes to preserve my men.”

“To preserve yourself, you mean,” Shatterstorm grumbles. “You were always selfish. I can’t believe I didn’t think you’d stoop this low.”

“It doesn’t surprise me you’d take your little girlfriend’s side on this,” Rose Blade says. “Even when you were at your best, you never really fit in with the rest of us. Always so mopey and contrary.” He chuckles slowly, leaning into Shatterstorm’s face, forcing him to turn his head sideways. “As far as I’m concerned, you were never a Royal Guard. You weren’t good enough to be one of us.”

Rainbow Dash glances aside to see Shakey and Eagle Eye watching this scene uneasily. Shatterstorm looks at them sadly, only for them to give him reluctant nods.

Shatterstorm turns his eyes back to Rose Blade, his face suddenly steeled. “That’s funny,” he says spitefully. “You weren’t good enough to be Captain.”

Cold silence. Rose Blade’s smile drops.

“That’s why Princess Celestia kept Shining Armor in charge of the Guard even when he became Prince of the Crystal Empire, right?” Shatterstorm smiles meanly. “Because no matter how hard you tried to earn your promotion, your selfishness would always prevent you from ever achieving it. Celestia saw it. She knew. You’ll never be even a tenth the Captain Shining Armor is. Never.”

With a jarring pop, Shatterstorm’s head is rocked to the left by a flash of deep green light. “Oh, what’s wrong?” Shatterstorm growls, his smile unbroken. “Can’t dirty those dainty little hooves of yours, girly-boy?”

Rose Blade’s eyes grew wide as dinner plates, his irises shrunken to pinpoints, his hoof raised, then brought down. The sound of hoof connecting with meat was surprisingly loud, causing Rainbow Dash to recoil.

“Now I know why you don't use hooves,” Shatterstorm shouts. “You hit like a bitch!”

Another pound of hoof against flesh.

“That all you got?!”

Another.

“Captain!” Whisper White says, his boyish tenor not raising high enough to count as a yell.

The anger in Rose Blade’s eyes dissipates as he raises his hoof for another punch. He looks up at Whisper White, and they share a moment or so in silence. Finally, he regains his composure, sneering down at Shatterstorm. “You’re not worth it.” Rose Blade spits, a phlegmy wad smacking Shatterstorm right on the small bruise he left over his right eye.

Rose Blade cocks his head to Rainbow Dash. “Take her to my dungeon. We’ll exchange her to Dracula later.” He looks at Shatterstorm, who still sits defiantly, scowling the Tartarus out of him. “As for this one?”

He looks to Eagle Eye and Shakey. “Prove your loyalty to me. Kill him. I don’t care how.”

Rainbow Dash spits out her apple. “Don’t you fu—!” But before she can finish, a hard hoof connects with the back of her head, and everything falls to black.

---

Shatterstorm’s mouth opens in horror as he watches Rainbow Dash’s unconscious form flop down. He tries to call her name, but Whisper White wraps his foreleg around Shatterstorm’s neck, reducing his voice to a gasp. Rainbow Dash is carried away by the two Royal Guards, past the red door, into a dark hallway. As the darkness swallows her, the red door is closed with a foreboding shout of steel against steel. Shatterstorm chokes, his eyes filling with tears.

Eagle Eye and Shakey look to Rose Blade, then to Shatterstorm. All they’d been through—the skirmishes, the Changeling invasion, Discord running rampant—it had to be worth something to them. Shatterstorm has to be worth something to them, doesn’t he?

He looks at them with pleading eyes. Don’t I?

Eagle Eye swallows hard, Shakey releasing a sigh as they walk forward. “Sorry, mate,” Eagle Eye says as his horn glows amber. “I like you, but I like bein’ alive more.”

“Wait!” a deep voice shouts suddenly, freezing everypony in the room.

Roaring Yawn enters the chamber gracelessly, as though finishing a day-long running marathon, coughing, sputtering, wiping his brow, regaining his breath and his composure. Rose Blade glares him down. “…Yes?”

Roaring Yawn fixes his glasses and kneels before Rose Blade, a mountain kneeling before a snake. “If it pleases you, let this one become one of my test subjects.”

Deep green eyes scan Roaring Yawn carefully, then drift to Shatterstorm. “What for?”

“When we approached the Wharg, she’d attacked this one using enough force to kill any other pony.” Roaring Yawn looks at Shatterstorm with curiosity, bordering on admiration. “Yet, this one got away with only minor scrapes and bruises.”

Rose Blade purses his lips in thought. It’s true that Shatterstorm seems able to survive anything—in fact, that’s the biggest reason he was selected as a Guard—but after all those demeaning things he’d said, Rose Blade is in the mood to see this punk’s blood staining the floor.

“I wish to study his physiology,” Roaring Yawn continues, “and see if there’s a way I can replicate such an ability for your troops.”

“...You can do that?” Rose Blade asks, eyebrow cocked in interest.

“A similar formula was concocted by Red Haze many centuries ago,” Roaring Yawn says.

"Red Haze?" Rose Blade echoes. "That one suicidal druggist?"

"Yes, her," Roaring Yawn confirms. "I was working on alternatives to producing the results she was going for before all this madness happened. Just give me some time, maybe a few weeks, and I’ll have it all ready.”

A slow pause. Rose Blade’s smile slithers up his face as he prances to Roaring Yawn, wraps a foreleg around him, and laughs in his ear. “Well, since it was your bumbling that helped me achieve my recent promotion, I suppose I can do something for you in return.”

Shatterstorm snorts. Would it kill this guy to at least pretend to compliment others? He used to be so good at it before. He wonders how hard it must be for Roaring Yawn to keep his hoof from giving Rose Blade a fat lip.

“He’s all yours,” Rose Blade sing-songs with a sweep of his foreleg. “But first? Promise me you’ll make this process as horrible as possible for him. I want you to record... every... scream.” His smile is small, but full of teeth.

Roaring Yawn, slowly and cautiously, raises an eyebrow at the odd request. Rose Blade lets go of Roaring Yawn and slithers behind Shatterstorm.

Shatterstorm shivers at the touch of Rose Blade’s hot breath on his shoulders. He leans close to Shatterstorm’s ear, as if with the intention of nibbling it tenderly. “I’m going to keep that recording on my desk,” he whispers airily. “And every time I feel lonely, I’m going to play it. Over and over.”

“Go to Tartarus,” Shatterstorm growls.

Rose Blade backs off, giggling. “Look around you. We’re already there.”

With a wave of his hoof, Rose Blade commands Whisper White to force Shatterstorm to his hooves. Shakey and Eagle Eye flank him as he takes Shatterstorm away. Roaring Yawn follows them demurely as a Neighponese geisha following her samurai.

---

Darkness.

An eye.

don’t look

devouring

DON’T LOOK

---

Rainbow Dash lifts her head with a gasp, her eyes wide and awake. There’s an immense cold in this room, a cold of darkness and silence.

Then there’s the stench. She’d taken a whiff of it upon her reawakening, an invasion of odors that strangles her nostrils. Piping hot liquid gets caught in her throat, threatening to be ejected out her mouth.

It succeeds.

As the warmth and stench of her vomit drifts into her face, Rainbow Dash shivers. Her hoof moves by accident, of its own accord—and the sudden yank against her fetlocks and sound of metal links scraping against tile tells her, before she even looks at it, that she’s been chained to the floor.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes travel the length of the chain, adjusting gradually to the all-swallowing darkness. There’s a vague shape nearby. Another pony?

“Hey?” she calls.

She tries to make a move toward the vague shape, but to no avail—the chains do not allow her to move more than a few inches in any direction. She tries to open her wings, but a brace applied around her middle constricts them. She curses.

“Hey!” she calls again. “Hey, guy. Where are we?”

The shape on the floor is definitely another pony, but there’s no sound of his breathing. Only hers, and it begins to escape her in cold rasps.

As she shuffles on her hooves, Rainbow Dash feels something warm and thick and sticky cling to them. Little by little, light or no light, she begins fitting the pieces together as to where she is, who is with her, and what may happen next.

No time to panic. Can’t panic. You’re a brave mare, Rainbow Dash—fearless. You’ve been beaten before, but you’ve always bounced back. You can do this.

Her internal pep talk gives her strength of some kind, though not very much. As she swallows the bitter taste in her mouth, Rainbow Dash attempts to piece together some kind of plan. Strategy was never her forte, nor was foresight or guile. No amount of thrashing or smashing would get her out of this one.

Rainbow Dash pauses. How would her hero, Daring Do, escape? She’d been imprisoned by various villains at least once a book—even set in death traps that would have spelled a gory end for lesser ponies. How would she get out of this one?

Daring Do usually used something in her surroundings. There was always some kind of flaw with the trap that she could exploit. But Rainbow Dash has difficulty seeing so much as a few inches from her face; what could she possibly find to break her chains if—

That line of thought is derailed with a slow squeal. The door is drawn open, allowing a modicum of light inside, flowing from behind a slim, serpentine shadow. Suddenly, lights turn on, forcing Rainbow Dash to recoil, eyes crushed shut, as if the light had punched her eyes. The chains around her fetlocks rattle as she reflexively tries to draw her hoof to shield her face, keeping them bound and grounded.

“Come now,” slithers the voice of Rose Blade calmly. “You haven’t been in the dark for more than fifteen minutes.”

Rainbow Dash slowly opens one eye, allowing the light to color in what once was blank. She finds Rose Blade, leaning smugly in the doorway, a smirk crooking his lips. Her eyes flick to where the pony-shaped thing is, and as she half-suspected, it is a corpse.

The corpse—a cyan pegasus stallion, judging by the bloody stumps on his sides—lies in a puddle of blood littered with rose heads and rose petals, juxtaposing the macabre with the romantic. The blood seeps across the floor, tile by tile, pooling under the corpse. Much of the blood had wandered to Rainbow Dash, staining her hooves, forelegs, side, and belly where she’d lied before.

She swallows a scream as hard as she can, bringing her eyes back up to the door. Rose Blade is no longer there—instead, he is over by an object she hadn’t seen before, a gramophone. His horn glows as he turns the crank, the sound of hooves gliding dexterously across piano keys, slowly, then surely, billowing from the horn and filling the room with jarringly peaceful music.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Rose Blade says, walking from the music player to the mirror on the wall. “I didn’t have time to clean my mess from earlier.” He fixes his mane proudly, his eyes going from his own reflection to Rainbow Dash’s behind him.

“Your boyfriend gave me an awful lot of trouble back there.”

Rainbow Dash has a million things she could say to that, none of them nice. Instead, she remains silent.

Rose Blade turns around, slowly, meeting Rainbow Dash’s glare. His smirk births a smile. “Instead of killing him right on the spot like I initially wanted, I put him in one of my cages. I haven’t quite decided what to do with him, yet.”

“You hurt him, and I swear you’ll—”

“Regret it?” Rose Blade says playfully.

“You won't live long enough to,” Rainbow Dash growls.

A pause. Rose Blade trots forward as the piano continues to sing over the gramophone. “You’re in no position to make threats.” He stops just in front of Rainbow Dash, leaning in close enough he could kiss her.

“But if I have your permission, we can…” His eyes press themselves against her forelegs, up to her chest, settling on her face. “…Perhaps, make a deal.”

His breath, hot and sweet, strokes Rainbow Dash’s face, his lips almost on hers. She turns away her face, grunting in disgust as she shuts her eyes. “N-No.”

“No?” Rose Blade laughs, backing away. He saunters around her, and she can feel his eyes picking clean every detail of her anatomy with a perverted smile. “You don’t even want to hear my deal?”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Simple, my dear—because you’ve no choice.”

Both ponies fall silent as Rose Blade stops just behind her. The piano picks up.

“Here’s my deal,” Rose Blade says, his snakelike baritone coming more slowly. “I leave Shatterstorm alone. He lives. For now. And in return…”

Rainbow Dash clenches her teeth and takes a sharp breath as she feels Rose Blade stroke her back, on the spot where her spine meets her flanks. Her heart slams against her chest. Cold sweat climbs down her face.

“You give me… yourself.”

“You already have me chained up,” Rainbow Dash notes. “Why are you making a deal at all?”

Rainbow Dash can’t see it, but she knows he’s smiling. “I like giving you the option. It makes you more willing.” A pause. Then his whispering voice and hot breath tickle the inside of her ear. “You’ll invariably say yes to make sure your boyfriend lives, and in return I’ll show you and do to you everything he cannot.”

Something inside Rainbow Dash breaks. Sacrifice her dignity, or sacrifice her friend. Her options swell into something heavy, crushing her with its obvious outcome. She can’t let Rose Blade hurt Shatterstorm… but at the same time, she can’t be sure Shatterstorm is even alive anymore. She could very well be agreeing to a bum deal.

But is that a chance she can take?

Her vision swims. Rainbow Dash doesn’t realize it until it’s too late, but tears are rolling down her face. A lump forms in her throat, heat building up in her nostrils and lips. She feels Rose Blade’s hoof—cold, condescending, and strangely comforting—slide up her back, stopping at the nape of her neck, Rose Blade himself standing beside her with his damned smirk.

He has her. He knows he does.

This is too much. Rainbow Dash is unsure of what’s hurting her more: Rose Blade’s offer, that Shatterstorm might already be dead, or that this situation makes her realize she’s not nearly as tough as she thought.

She’s just giving him what he wants. With a hard swallow, Rainbow Dash lifts her head away and closes her eyes, not honoring Rose Blade with eye contact.

“Well,” Rose Blade says coolly, “at least think about it. I have other business to attend to at the moment.” His hoof cascades up her neck, cupping her chin as he walks around her, trying to get a good look in her shut eyes.

Suddenly, the hoof disconnects from her face. Rainbow Dash opens her eyes as Rose Blade makes his way to the door. He makes one last pause, looking at his reflection again (Jeez, why don’t you just marry the stupid mirror, you sick freak! Rainbow Dash thinks), fixing his firetruck-red mane, then finally reaches the door as the piano begins to slow its crescendo. He turns to look at Rainbow Dash one more time.

“You’ll have to make your decision by tomorrow morning,” he says with his pretty-boy smile. “Get plenty of rest. You’ll need it.”

The door slams shut, leaving Rainbow Dash alone with a corpse and gentle piano music.

Comments

[cullexoh]

Classy-vanian

[Brony_Fife]

5496142

Don't be. That's one of my most favorite Castlevania fansongs.

5496633

Yeah, there's all these references just littering the place. But it kinda makes me wonder what it was that set off the radio. Couldn't have been the Wharg...

5503772

Rarity, I think, makes for the most "Castlevania"-ish of the Mane Six. I hope that once I get to her big character arc that you'll agree.

5506807

[Clocklike]

Now THAT'S what I call a great chapter.