When my eyes opened, Twilight was leaning against the palace window overlooking the garden. "Twists and turns... twists and turns!" She brightened and spun to face us. "That's it! I bet Discord hid the elements in the Palace labyrinth!"
The girls and I turned to look at the Princess. Celestia nodded her head in agreement. "Good luck, my little ponies," she said. As Twilight trotted up, she faced her and proclaimed, "The fate of Equestria is in your hooves."
"Thanks, Princess," Twilight uttered with a smug smile. "We won't let you down!"
We all bowed as one and turned around, bolting out of the royal sanctum. As we made our way towards the rear of the palace, I could have sworn I heard the echoing laughter of something evil reverberating off the walls and marble pillars around us. I wasn't the only one. Glancing to my right and below me, I saw several of my friends trembling in mid-gallop. Rarity was sweating visibly, Fluttershy was whimpering, and Applejack was—
Wait, Applejack?
"Hey AJ, you okay?" I murmured from where I glided just a hair above her.
She panted while we sped onto the royal veranda. "Ya picked a mighty fine time for how do's."
"Seriously. You're not quivering in your horsehoes or nothing are you?" I smirked and whispered, "It's just a stupid ugly goat god thingy!"
"Yeah, well, it's a stupid ugly goat god thingy who can flip the weather upside down and turn all my crops to popcorn!" Applejack's face tensed. In the sunlight, she turned the expression into a defensive frown. "T'ain't a load of parasprites we're dealing with here, Rainbow. This here's some real fine trouble."
"How hard can it be to get this dude to cough up the elements?" I remarked. "We've kicked Nightmare Moon's butt! Just the six of us! Stop worrying!"
"I ain't worrying!" Applejack hissed up at me, her emerald eyes piercing. "I frankly don't care what happens to us!" With a sigh, she gazed ahead of where she was galloping. "I just can't stop thinkin' about the farm..."
"Applejack..."
"About Big Mac and Granny and Little Apple Bloom during all this mess—"
"Applejack, even you can't be a brave pony all the time!"
She squinted up at me, the sunlight glinting off her eyes.
I smiled wide and pointed at my flying self. "Cuz that's my job!" I winked. "So long as I'm around, no nasty jerk is gonna lay a hoof on you, or your family. You got that?"
Applejack blinked. Eventually, a wry smirk crossed her lips. "Half the time, I can't tell if yer bein' loyal or just bein' sassy."
"There's a word for it," I grin broadly. "It stats with an 'A'..."
"Ughh, Rainbow..."
"And if you say 'apple,' I'm gonna shove that hat where the sun doesn't—"
"Shhh!" Twilight hissed. "We're here!"
I looked ahead, seeing a wide series of green hedges stretching wildly before us. I touched down beside the group as we trotted to a stand still.
"We h-have to go in there?" Fluttershy remarked, trembling.
"Nope!" Proudly, I walked to the head of the group, flapping my wings. "Dopey Discord forgot about these babies!"
In a blue blur, I took off.
And back to plain text, in RD's eyes.
inb4 the super indepth italics analysis by Pilate.
Welp. Already seeing divergence in this world and canon.
hey im actually here before pilate well back to RD
Oh Rainbow, don't you know? Your wings won't work here.
GAK
"Opened Eyes", and boom! The italics are gone.
Oh, boy... Discord exposition? We're learning so much, so fast!
Awkward...
And ditching the italics, RD is back. Great transition from the last chapter.
Interestingly, I see absolutely none of Belle's influence in RD's narration (though I realize this scene depicts past events).
Hmmm more Dashie. Interesting...
So this is (as I'm sure we all know) the first two episodes from season 2. A lot happened in the show in that episode(s). So I get the feeling we might learn a lot in this next arc.
I'm looking forward to moar info!
Onwards!
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I'm not quite sure how this meem is supposed to work. Care to enlighten me?
The chapters are gonna switch perspectives again before we get to the Discord burning everyone to a crisp part aren't they? And Dash dislikes Italics. Whelp, only one thing for it: Onward!
The tragedies a-comin'.
OMG so much to catch up on!
So many more chapters of Austreao Pt2!
Background Pony finally completed!
What's next, End of Ponies?!?!
Plus the new Fan Story Prompt and whatever else he throws up there, this is just preposterous....
No he didn't!
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
So we get a slam cut back to Dash's memories here, as I predicted. I'm pretty sure at this point that Dash has a lot of control over Belle, the italics signified that Dash was listening in, and now the plain text shows that it's Dash's point of view. I'm getting good at this...These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
Oh dear. here comes the candy storm.
Its worse than it sounds.
Interesting how we skipped Discord's appearance from last time we had those visions.
Thought so.
I see. Rainbow left early on and then Discord tried to track her down, only to get caught up in an older prophecy.
I think.
And then her wings detached, striking Discord square in the face, sacrificing themselves to save Equestria.
Teh end
Back to Rainbow Dash, no more italics. Hmm.
Oh yes this is where the stuff happens.
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i cri evertim
Come on! I want to know how this all started!
And we're back to stabbing the knife right into the gut.
Thanks, Colon.
And hey, the introduction of the 'A-word'.
Well, at least we're catching up to the whole 'chaos rift' shenanigans. I wonder what makes this timeline differ so greatly from the one we know...
Seriously though, we haven't heard from Wrath in a while and it's unsettling.
Are my master plan, and then find the elements, back where you began. If only Twilight knew what was coming.
04/21/2017 01:32 UTC
So I just started reading again today and something stood out to me. All the dialog with Belle is in italics lately. The dialog with RD is in normal text. Isn't italics usually used in large chunks to signify a memory, a dream, etc? Must keep reading!
EDIT: Looked back and it's been like that the whole story and I just caught on. lol
Uh oh, the italics are gone and we're back to plain text, but we're also back in Rainbow's memories. That's not how that's supposed to work! I'm really impressed with how IC has been messing with our interpretation of the story by changing the actual format of the text. He established rules for what different text style means, then purposefully flipped it on it head.