Disappear

by ShimmeringStallion

Loyal to a Fault

Loyal to a Fault

Vanish turned his flank to the mares, using the second horn to cause the wings on his back to disappear, thereby reverting his coat to its original dark, dark blue color. He did this to taunt Rainbow Dash, who was stunned silent at what she had just heard. As she processed the words he spoke of, she was filled with a mix of emotions: from fear, to anxiety, to rage. Nopony would take her wings from her; she was the fastest flyer in Cloudsdale, and she was sure of it. But all the Pegasi living in Cloudsdale were in danger, so long as this menace was allowed to roam freely. She couldn’t let it happen. “I won’t let you hurt any more of my friends! We’re ending this, right now!” Vanish sighed at the foolish notion, but turned around to see Rainbow Dash pick up a scalpel horizontally with her mouth, and charge right towards him, determined to get the wings back regardless of whether or not he had them brandished.

“Are you insane!? You won’t solve anything if you-!” Vanish tried continuing his statement, but clearly Rainbow Dash had no intention of hearing him out. Turning his back to her quickly, he proceeded to buck-kick Rainbow Dash right in the chest, causing her to cough the scalpel out of her mouth harshly and double over in pain. Her friends gathered around her, as the scalpel whipped past Vanish’s head, embedding itself right into his hat, cutting a large gash into it before losing momentum and stopping, falling out from the newly created hole and landing on the hospital room floor. Vanish had turned around to kick Rainbow Dash, so he clearly saw every moment of the incision from entrance to exit, and the sight of it caused the stallion to gasp in disbelief.

It was a massive shock to his system: The cherished hat had been soiled in the past, but it had never been damaged, and especially not so severely. As the other ponies helped their friend catch her breath and get back up to her feet, Vanish gently used his mouth to grab the hat, and placed it delicately into the side of his saddlebag, where it now shared room with the ‘Modern Ponyville History’ book he had borrowed from Twilight. Applejack stepped forward. “Erm… look… Rainbow Dash tends to get a mite angry when her friends get threatened… t-there’s no need for fightin’, y’hear?... Umm… Hello?” Vanish seemed to simply ignore the voice of the pony speaking to him, as he gently folded the flap of his saddlebag over the bag itself, locking it with a latch.

“… I’ve changed my mind.” Vanish walked towards the door, turning around to the curious eyes of the six ponies in the room with him, but delivering the entirety of his focus to the one pony who was sleeping on the bed, yet speaking to the mare who attacked him. “Rainbow Dash, there are three reasons why I don’t try knocking your friends away and taking your wings, right now.” Rainbow looked at him with fear. She knew she had crossed a line, and what the stallion was saying right now could very well mean danger for all of her friends, so she made sure to listen.

“First of all, I’m not like you: I won’t pick a fight when someone who you claim to be your friend, is in pain on a bed right next to the pony you want to fight with; I don’t want to cause her any more pain than I already have, though I sincerely doubt you are capable of understanding such morals.” Vanish turned his attention to the mares that had gathered around Rainbow Dash. “Secondly, I do not wish to inadvertently harm your friends. I don’t know how they can defend you as they do, considering how dangerous you are, but their loyalty to you is, to me, questionable at best. Maybe with time, they will come to see you as the monster you truly are… or at least, as I see you.”

Vanish looked straight into the worried eyes of the rainbow-maned mare, and gave an angry, disappointed look. “… As for the third reason, you truly frighten me with your attitude. If I’m going to take your wings, I don’t want anypony around who might get hurt, regardless of whether you care for their safety or not.” Vanish closed his eyes and used the magic of his first horn to cloak himself, disappearing as fast as he had appeared, with only his voice as proof of his presence in front of the mares. “… Rainbow Dash, I swear you’ll pay for your transgressions, and for your ignorance towards those you claim to be your friends. Mark my words, Rainbow Dash: I’ll make you pay dearly!” With the last of his words coated in venomous disgust, the room fell into silence as the sounds of the hallway drowned out what appeared to be the faintly heard hoof steps of the furious stallion, cloaked in a veil of magic.

Rainbow Dash allowed her friends to run to the hallway, in the hopes that they could find a trace of where Vanish had run off to. As they left, Pinkie Pie noticed that Rainbow wasn’t following them. “Aren’t ‘ya comin’ with us, Da-…” Applejack nudged Pinkie Pie to get her attention. “C’mon, Pinkie… Rainbow’s got some thinkin’ t’do.” Pinkie followed the others, while Rainbow turned her attention to Derpy, who was still sleeping on the bed, no doubt due to medicine the doctors gave to keep her asleep so she wouldn’t feel the pain from her back.

Rainbow just stared at her unconscious friend, and a feeling of sickness slowly rose up in the pit of her stomach as she began contemplating the words that the stallion had spoken. “Am I really as dangerous as he said? Am I really a… a monster? I grabbed that knife, thinking only of cutting those wings off of him, but the wings were gone by then. I didn’t even consider the idea of somepony else in the room getting hurt due to what I did. Vanish didn’t even kick me away, into anypony. He seemed to want to simply stop me, to immobilize me. Was that because he wanted to protect himself? Or was it because he was trying to protect… the girls?”

As her mind raced, she began to develop a headache. She looked down at Derpy, who seemed to be shedding tears, despite sleeping. Small whimpers could be heard from the gray pony that was lying on the hospital bed, possibly the result of the medication wearing off, or perhaps she was having a nightmare. "Derpy... you were so close to getting hurt back when I charged into the room… Now that I think about it, until I ran in, Vanish was only focused on discussing things with the girls. He showed no ill will towards you at all... so why did you have to suffer? Why your wings!? Why not…”

“… -nbow Dash? Rainbow Daaash?” Rainbow Dash had spaced out, and didn’t even notice the doctor that came in. “Oh, um… H-Hi, Doc.” The doctor gave a sly grin at the slightly embarrassed Pegasus pony in front of him. “You can come back to see Derpy later today. Right now, we need to examine her in detail to see if we can figure out a remedy for her condition.” Rainbow was ready to object to the doctor’s demand, but saw her friends in the doorway, staring at her with concerned looks in their eyes.

She spoke softly. “… Alright, Doc, just take care of her, okay?” Rainbow looked back down at Derpy. “… She’s a good friend of mine.” The doctor smiled and nodded in response. “There’s no need to worry. If anything happens, we’ll do everything we can to help her.” Rainbow Dash gave an empty smile of reassurance as a show of respect to the doctor’s commitment, before walking out of the room. Looking back at Derpy once more, she turned to her friends in the hall. “Did you find Vanish?” Her friends shook their heads as she sighed expectantly. “I didn’t think so… he did turn invisible, after all.”

Twilight looked out the window at the end of the hall, searching for some sort of sign of Vanish. Fluttershy comforted her. “We’ll find him, don’t worry about it. He couldn’t have gotten far. It’s not like he can go back to Ponyville without somepony seeing… oh…” She started mumbling to herself, which Pinkie Pie took the time to interrupt. “It was so strange. He seemed so calm until that knife got stuck in his hat, you’d think that hat belonged to Applejack!” Those words caused Applejack to remove her own hat and look at it, as if the answer was inside it.

After a few seconds, a smile grew on Applejack's face. “C’mon, y’all, I think I know where our ‘friend’ ran off to.” Applejack placed her hat back on her head as she started running down the hall, which caused the others to follow in hot pursuit. Twilight was skeptical, and felt the need to question her friend’s idea. “Applejack, are you sure? He could’ve gone anywhere! Where do you think he headed off to in such a hurry?” Applejack and the others slowed to a trot as they approached the receptionists, so as not to upset the ponies in the lobby, before leaving the hospital and galloping off again, with Applejack smiling about her idea. “I ain’t positive, but if I were him, there’s only one place in Ponyville I’d want to go, given what happened back in Derpy’s room!”