Things where changing in Liberty Castle. A sizable number of Sky Knights were gone, having been moved over to protecting Ponyton. Despite that, the castle was as crowded as ever. Though none of the newcomers wore the silver vests of the Sky Knights.
When she’d looked into the matter, Rainbow Dash discovered that all the new pegasus ponies around the castle were the noncombatant type who were being brought in from other hideouts due to the castle being safer. On top of that when she’d spoken to them directly, she’d run across a few that knew her as the winner of the best young flyers competition in Cloudsdale. Seeing as there was no such place as Cloudsdale in this world, it quickly became apparent that the Sky Knights were bringing the Equestrian pegasi to the castle.
What Dash couldn’t figure out was why? From what she’d heard it still sounded like they were a ways off from being able to send any of them back to their own world. Were they here to keep her company? Keep each other company? Or was it to show that they were trying to uphold their end of the bargain despite having no meaningful way to do so?
“Rainbow Dash!”
The youthful voice shook the paladin from her thoughts. She turned to face the speaker half expecting to see an orange filly, only to be reminded that that voice belonged to a blue filly in this world.
“Cherry Blaze and Cloud Sword wanted to talk to you,” Scooter finished.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking out the window and taking note that the Knights who were at the castle seemed to be gathering.
“Probably. I mean, you’re going to go kick that Dark Summoner’s butt! And then pegasi like us won’t be hunted just for be pegasi anymore, right?”
Scooter was looking at the paladin with eyes almost like Scootaloo’s. Or rather with the eyes Scootaloo used to look at her with back when she was just a hero to the orange filly. But ever since she’d taken Scootaloo under her wing, there was something more than just a kid looking on somepony they thought was cool, now days there was a true bond in Scootaloo’s eyes, and that was something Scooter’s eyes lacked. Still it was hard to say no to a filly with those cute fan eyes that the blue filly was using at the moment.
“Yeah, I sure hope that’s today’s plan,” Dash answered with a bit of a smile. Ruffling the filly’s mane a bit she added, “I guess I shouldn’t keep them waiting. The sooner I kick the Dark Summoner’s butt the better!”
Rainbow Dash walked slowly to the command room of the castle, and as expected, when she got there she found Elder Cherry Blaze and Captain Cloud Sword waiting. Unexpected, but unsurprising, Trixie was also gathered by the map table and she offered a momentary smile when she saw the paladin approaching.
“Paladin!” the elder greeted, with a cheerful tone.
Cloud Sword gave a nod as if to acknowledge Rainbow Dash’s presence, but otherwise kept the kind of disciplined neutral look that proved he was bothered by something. He kept his troubles to himself though, as the elder resumed speaking.
“While speaking with Trixie the Wise, we have come to a conclusion as how best to get you and your fellow otherworldly pegasi home. Trixie, if you would be so kind?”
The unicorn gave a nod and then spoke up.
“You see the magic of a shadow pegasus isn’t it’s own, but is the magic of the Dark Summoner cast through the shadow. In short the Dark Summoner is the one casting the portals for her shadows to enter your world and abduct your pegasi. Needless to say, I don’t think the Dark Summoner is going to open a portal for you and all the others she went through the trouble of kidnapping in the first place.”
Trixie breathed a heavy sigh before continuing. “However, portal spells aren’t exactly my specialty. And while I may have a workaround for that, what I don’t have a workaround for is the fact that I don’t know how to open a portal, let alone one to another world, and forget one to a specific other world. And seeing as the Dark Summoner isn’t likely to help us with that, our best bet is to raid her headquarters and take her spell books and magic research notes.”
A moment of silence followed Trixie’s words. In that moment Cloud Sword looked away. It was Cherry Blaze who ended the silence and spoke up.
“Of course, if we’re going to commit the resources to invade the Dark Summoner’s stronghold…” the elder said letting her voice trail off at the end.
Rainbow Dash took the hint and finished the clear implication. “We might as well finish the job while we’re there.”
“Exactly!”
Looking down, Elder Cheery Blaze motioned to a crudely drawn map on the table. “Sadly we haven’t been able to get much information out of the Dark Summoner’s stronghold. We tried a few times, even then only the last spy managed to send back any reports before turning up impaled on a spike in the stronghold’s front fence.”
With that Dash looked over the map herself. It consisted of little more than a single room, the entry room. At the back of the room were some lines that showed hallways but those just faded away and were accompanied with marking denoting them as the east or west wing. Just above the words ‘east wing’ was a note that read, ‘to library/living quarters?’ By the west wing the map’s maker had added the note, ‘something evil!’
Raising an eyebrow was all Rainbow Dash had to do to ask her question.
Once again it was the elder who answered. “According to the report that came with the map, our agent observed that the Dark Summoner always retreated to the east wing at the end of the day or to fetch books, but spent most of her time in the west wing. And the report stated that whenever they approached the west wing there was a dark, ominous feeling in the air.”
After a moment of awkward silence the elder said, “Well… I suppose I’ll leave the two of you to make your battle planes.” And with that she left the map table and walked over to another where she pretended to look over some charts that she’d no doubt seen a hundred times.
Cloud Sword looked down, but not really at the map. “I’m not sure what there is to discuss,” He said. “There isn’t enough here for a real plan, just split into two teams. The bulk of the Sky Knights go to the east wing looking for the library, and the team with the paladin goes after the Summoner in the west wing.”
“Planing was never my strongpoint, but yeah, when you put like that, that sounds like the kinda plan I’d come up with.”
Apparently Dash’s fake smile showed too much, as Cloud called her on it.
“Despite your attempt at jest, you seem troubled.”
Rainbow Dash hung her head slightly.
“You remember how I said I expected the Dark Summoner to be your world’s version of my friend Twilight?”
“Yes. Aren’t these similarities what’s given you an edge against the overlords? Why should that trouble you?”
“That’s just it. I’m not sure how I’d beat Twilight. She can just grab me out of the air and all I can do is wait for her to let me go. Back home that’s not a problem because, well you know, my Twilight isn’t evil. But how do I fight a unicorn who can just lock me down at will?”
“A worthy concern. Although I would remind you of the protective magics of the sacred wing blades. I can personally assure you that they will protect you from an unwanted levitation spell grabbing you out of the air.”
“You’ve fought the Summoner before?” Dash asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No. Though I have practiced against Trixie. Not to mention that even our cheep replicas-” He tapped his own armored silver vest. “-that could never hope to match the wing blades’ magic, have strong enough defensive enchantments to ward off unwanted levitation spells. I’m sure all you need to worry about is actual combat magic meant to be used against others with enchanted items.”
“Great… all I have to worry about is a gattling laser then.”
Cloud Sword blinked slowly and deliberately.
“Do I even want to know the context of that?”
“Probably not. But I guess we should humor the elder and start getting ready to head out, huh?”
Looking down at the crud map, Cloud Sword nodded.
* * * * * * *
The afternoon sun shown down on the jagged cliff sides of the mountains north of Liberty Forest, as a few dozen pegasus ponies wove their way through the stone spines that came out of the mountain. Keeping close to the cliff sides they came around another ridge and finally came within sight of the edges of the ruined city.
All that really remained now was shattered obsidian stone, marking foundations of buildings long gone. Maybe a doorway here, two stone blocks still together there. The fitted brick roads had actually faired the best out of all the remnants.
The signs that this ruin had once been this world’s version of Canterlot were there. Mainly in the form of roads abruptly ending with shear drops and the shattered remains of supports reaching out into the nothing beyond as if there had once been an artificial extension to the natural plateau that the city had started on.
“What was this place called?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I don’t know,” Cloud Sword answered, with a slight shake of his head. “It’s always been a ruin in my life time. I think it used to be the capital city before it fell three hundred years ago.” After bring a hoof to his chin and gazing into space thoughtfully for a moment, he added, “The only thing I remember hearing about it was that it when it was still standing it shimmered in the sunlight like a city of black glass. If you want more than that you might try asking Trixie. I think it was supposed to be a unicorn centric city before its destruction.”
A few moments later and Cloud signaled for everypony to follow him. With that they all swooped in low, skimming just above the ground as they zipped over to the last of the ruins on the north end of the fallen city.
Poking their heads out from behind the obsidian stones that marked the ending of yet another long forgotten building, they beheld the one structure that stood. Across the field from them was the Dark Summoner’s stronghold.
A line of obsidian spikes served as a fence. Skulls adorned ten of the spikes. Of those, three still had the rest of the pony they belonged to still attached. The other seven had long since succumbed to erosion, leaving only a pile of bones at the base of the spike.
“You lost ten spies to her?”
Dash’s question got a slow shake of the head from Cloud Sword.
“No, only four. I presume that the other six are the result of the paranoia that allowed her to catch our ponies without fail.”
An additional glance at the bones revealed that these unfortunate souls were all earth ponies or unicorns.
Shifting her gaze beyond the gruesome display at the front gate, the cyan paladin took in the sight of the building beyond the fence.
The whole thing was made of the same obsidian stone as everything else around here. Though looking at it now, it became clear that the reason that there was so little of the ruined city left was likely because the stone to make the stronghold had been taken from the ruins and reshaped to make it.
The central building was the massive ziggurat that could be seen from miles away. To either side were the wings that consisted of simple two-story square buildings attached to the ziggurat by short hallways. Along the lower levels there were plenty of windows but the black-iron double doors at the front of the ziggurat seemed to be the only intended entrance to the structure. The most noticeable detail of the structure was the ribbons of dark purple energy flowing along the stair-stepped sides of the ziggurat.
Rainbow Dash slowly stood up from behind the leg-high debris she’d been crouched behind moments before.
“Shouldn’t there be guards or something out here?” she asked, motioning toward the building.
Standing up, Cloud also started walking toward the unguarded structure.
“Something’s not right.”
“Did it always glow like this?” the paladin asked, as the group crept closer.
She didn’t remember it being like this when she’d seen it from afar. But dark purple on black isn’t a lot of contrast, so she couldn’t rule out the possibility that this was a feature that simply couldn’t be seen from far away.
“No, it didn’t.”
A waved hoof, signaling for some of the Sky Knight’s to take to the air, quickly followed Cloud Sword’s answer. Yet, once they where high enough, shaking heads confirmed that they didn’t see anything laying in wait on the ziggurat’s roof, either.
Another group of knights turned around and walked backwards, keeping their eyes on the ruins behind them as they continued their approach.
They were halfway between the fence of spikes and the front doors when Rainbow Dash felt a chill pass through her very core. The sudden cold made her shiver despite the late day sun on her coat. Seemingly out of nowhere a feeling of dread gripped her heart. And judging from the fact all of the Sky Knights shared a startled look on their faces, it was safe to assume that feeling wasn’t just her.
“I thought that evil feeling was supposed to be inside?”
“Yes,” Cloud Sword answered. “If the dark magic field is reaching all the way out here… I think we may be running out of time.”
The grim prediction was more than enough to get every pegasus on the ground to burst into a gallop, and those in the air to dive toward their target. Most headed for the main doors, although a few aimed for the windows to either side of them.
Leading the pack, Rainbow Dash took note of the doors, mainly the lack of hinges on the outside signaling that they swung inward. Reaching the doors first, she spun on her front legs and kicked hard with her back ones, flinging the doors open just in time for a dozen Sky Knights to rush in at full speed.
Despite being the size of a small stadium, the entry room proved to be quite crowded, filled with an army of shadow pegasi and complemented with a few dozen earth ponies and unicorns, wielding blood-steel weapons.
Now joined by the Sky Knights, to say the room burst into chaos would have been the understatement of the century. Shadowy lassos flew, water balloons exploded with the light of the waters of night and day. Fireballs and icy blasts came from the unicorns, while Sky Knights returned fire by pulling small puffs of cloud from the pouches on their belts and kicking lightning from them. Armored horseshoes clashed with each other as frequently as blood-steel weapons and wing guards.
Within seconds, any semblance of battle lines dissolved as aerial battles found their way to the floor.
“Paladin! We must focus on the goal!” Cloud Sword shouted. Then amidst the flash of the water’s light he added, “Team seven, follow me!”
With that he, Rainbow Dash, and three other sky knights took to the air and shot across the room toward the left hall. As soon as they reached said hall, the three knights spun around and engaged any enemy that attempted to follow.
With the knights holding the choke-point that was the hallway’s entrance, Rainbow Dash and Cloud Sword blitzed down the hall leaving the sounds of battle growing ever fainter behind them.
While the entrance room had been lit with windows and torches, this hallway lacked both, and so charging down it meant charging into ever-darker gloom. The one exception to that gloom being a rectangle of light coming from the window at the end of the hallway.
Halfway down the hall, where it was so dark that they couldn’t really see the walls anymore, they noticed another void. Not one of light, but one of presence, for both paladin and knight captain had expected an ambush here. Yet despite the hallway’s darkness, the place where shadow pegasi would be effectively invisible held no such trap.
For a moment Rainbow Dash considered that it might be a mistake to be rushing down the hall without checking all of the doorways they were passing. But the increasingly potent eerie feeling in the air told her that the source of the dark magic was still ahead.
As they neared the end of the hall, it was bright enough to see two shadow pegasi stationed in front of the last door on the right.
Surging forward Cloud Sword said, “Save your strength for the Summoner, I got this!”
The first of the shadows was destroyed by a blast of lightning. Then Cloud clobbered the second with a dive-bomb landing right on to it’s back. He then reached down the pull the shadow into a hold that would leave it ready for an easy strike from the paladin’s wing blades.
Though before Rainbow Dash could deliver such a strike, the shadow dissolved, not into sparks of light, but into sparks of darkness that seemed to get sucked through the closed door.
Looking at the unassuming wooden door, Cloud Sword said, “She is no doubt just beyond that door.”
“Yeah. Let’s end this!”
A slow shake of the stallion’s head wiped the grin from the paladin’s face.
“No, paladin. You must face the Dark Summoner alone.”
“What! Why?”
“Because hatred clouds one’s judgement. And because she is the one foe I can not face without becoming consumed by rage.”
“What are you talking about? If anypony has that Zen keeping your emotions in check thing down it’s you!”
“If we were talking about any other opponent I’d agree with you,” Cloud said. Shaking his head he quickly added, “But I’ve always known I’d never be able to face the Dark Summoner myself.”
“Why?” Rainbow Dash asked, borderline demanded.
“The Dark Summoner didn’t just appear out of nowhere one day. Long before she attracted the attention of the Sky Knights, she was capturing pegasus ponies to drain for her dark magic. Not many, just one here, one there. Sparse enough that the disappearances could be written off as accidents, ‘probably ran into a dragon or something,’ kind of things.”
Even just talking about it, the embers of rage started to make their way into Cloud’s eyes.
“Well, I was one of her first. Thanks to her I spent the better part of my foalhood in a cage. Every day, being drained to an inch of my life. I lost count of the years I suffered in that cage before she’d finally caught the attention of the Sky Knights.”
Closing his eyes for a moment the stallion purged the anger from his voice.
“Needless to say, once the Sky Knights rescued me I joined them in a heartbeat. I quickly became the paladin. But I realized that the paladin must fight without hatred in their heart to keep the sacred wing blades’ favor, but I could never do that against her. From that day on, I always knew I wouldn’t be the paladin who ended this.”
He shook his head for a moment, then said, “That’s why I’ve always trained others to take my place as paladin. Because I realized that if I ever faced her I’d just get myself and everypony with me killed. I’m sorry Rainbow Dash, but I have done all that I can to help you. I’m going to go see if I can help the library strike team.”
With that, he returned down the hall, not even giving the paladin the chance to respond.
Putting her hoof on the door, Rainbow Dash sighed. Once again the spirit of loyalty was going into battle alone.
She closed her eyes to steel herself for the coming fight. Yet, the moment she closed her eye she saw five mares and an orange filly, her best friends. Then one by one the darkness in her mind’s eyes gave way to more ponies. The pegasi of Equestria that she knew were here in this world, the ponies who were counting on her to bring them home safely.
Opening her eyes, she grinned. She may be alone physically, but spiritually she had an army at her back. And that was enough to kick the door open and charge in.
Inside she found she found a large room. Not castle-throne-room large, but more like Ponyville-town-hall’s-main-chamber large, but with only a two-story overhead. There were no windows to be found, but there were some torches burning with eerie purple flames producing some light. In the floor, along the walls to either side, there were three pools on each side wall with the waters of night and day, for a total of six pools sucking the light out of the room. At the back of the room was a raised stage, just a single step up from the rest of the floor.
Among the less permanent looking things in the room, up on that stage, near the back wall, was a large bolder that was maybe six feet tall. Although the odd thing about it was its surface was a bunch of flat faces almost as if a jeweler had cut it, but did so with no sense of symmetry. Also, each facet had glowing red runes carved into them of the same type she’d seen on the obelisk near the necromancer’s cottage. And to top it all off, ribbons of dark magic were flowing from the six pools in the room to the strange artifact at the back of the stage. Oh, and the whole thing was floating a good foot off the ground, that kind of set it apart from a regular obsidian bolder, too.
At the center of the room was a sphere of rapidly spinning, dark purple energy. And it was floating a few feet off the ground, centered over the middle of a circle of glowing, purple runes on the floor.
Just beyond the magic show, near the front of the stage was a unicorn mare. Her coat was bright red, much like Big Mac’s back home. The mare’s mane and tail were a darker shade of red and had a bright red and a yellow stripe. Form and style wise, the mare was a perfect match for Twilight Sparkle, with those same straight edges and simple lines that practically screamed ‘bookworm.’
The feeling of dark magic in the air sent a tingle down Dash’s spine. The kind of tingle you get when you just know you’re in danger.
With a memory of the demon of truth flashing in her mind, Rainbow Dash darted over to one of the pools and slammed down her hooves as if it where a storm cloud. The pool burst into light, filling that corner of the room and creating an odd dance of light and shadows a few feet away from the now luminescent pool.
Yet, as comforting as the feel of light magic around her was, this was also the first time she’d ever really seen the light magic of the wells contained.
“So, you’ve come,” the Dark Summoner said, finally acknowledging the presence of the pegasus. “The Sky Knight’s great paladin.”
Rainbow Dash took a step back, even having been ready for it, the fact that the Summoner’s voice was identical to Twilight’s was just too unnerving.
The crimson unicorn gave an annoyed sigh and continued.
“It’s pathetically ironic, isn’t it? I really thought that those legends were just stories that the pegasi told to comfort themselves in their weakness. Which means, either you’re using a lot of dye, or you really are related to the hero of three hundred years ago.”
Thanks to the Summoner’s voice matching Twilight’s, it was easy for Rainbow Dash to catch the honest curiosity in the unicorn’s question.
“Oh I’m the real deal alright. But you’re the one who was opening portals to my world. So is it really that surprising that I found my way here?”
“Considering that I had my shadows avoiding the capture of any rainbow mane pegasus ponies while they where hunting, it was highly unlikely that any descendant of the hero of legend would end up here.”
“And yet, here I am. And that brings us to the most important question,” Dash said as she stopped a hoof into the shallow pool she was standing in, causing another surge of light magic to dance around her. “Why?”
Tilting her head slightly the unicorn answered, “Why what? You seem to have misplaced the context of your ‘why’.”
“Why are you hunting pegasi in the first place? They haven’t done anything to you! Especially the ones from my world!”
The unicorn approached the very front of the stage and answered, “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, But in THIS world ponykind hasn’t had a functional nation for over three hundred years! Minotaurs, griffins, heck, even the dragons are more organized! For three hundred years every city, town, and community has been nothing more than an independent city-state, only looking out for themselves, and never caring about the rest of ponykind! Care to guess why?!”
“The pegasi! That’s why!”
She wasn’t exactly surprised by the Summoner’s answer to her own question, but all Dash could do was tilt her head and give a confused look.
“How is that the fault of us pegasi?”
“Because ever since their founding, the Sky Knights have been the only group of ponies in a position to unite our shattered kingdom, they even extend their protection to every town that they deem ‘good,’ but they refuse to rule! Don’t you see? The Sky Knight had created the illusion of unity! But we didn’t have a real standing army, only a bunch of volunteer-wannabe-hero pegasi!”
The paladin raised an eyebrow. Despite the condemning tone, the unicorn’s words sounded more like an endorsement of the Sky Knights than a condemnation to her.
Although that did nothing to stop the Summoner’s rant.
“They’re not even professional soldiers! You’re their paladin! Surely you’ve seen how they insist that all their members learn a ‘peacetime’ profession so they can take care of themselves! And that’s their greatest weakness! Unlike a real army, they aren’t even dependent on those they clam to protect!”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Of course!” the Summoner scoffed. “Don’t you see? Once I had enough shadow puppets to attack, what did they do? They ran and hid in their castles and forts! They abandoned those they clamed to protect because they didn’t truly need them! An army that does nothing but train for war can’t feed itself, they must protect those who feed them or die trying! But your precious Sky Knight had the choice of running and hiding! They left all those towns open to conquest because one little summoner attacked them. Imagine what would have happened if it had been someone who wasn’t interested in capturing the towns and cities who’d attacked, instead of me!”
Dash narrowed her eyes. Getting ponies to work together was fine, but she was forcing others to follow her by force. Not cool.
“You want to know the worst thing about your precious Sky Knights?” the unicorn’s rant continued. “Their worthless traditions of honor!”
The paladin raised an eyebrow and thought. ‘She had a problem with honor now, too? This should be interesting.’
“Case and point, you could have attacked me minutes ago,” The unicorn said with a sinister grin. “But you just stood there, hearing me out, trying to pass ‘fair judgment’ over me, giving me all the time I needed to finish my spell!”
With that, six ribbons of dark magic came from the unicorn’s horn and wound their way to the artifact at the back of the room.
For the first time the Summoner’s horn stopped glowing with dark magic. As the ribbons of magic reached the artifact, it began to pulse with a dark purple light. And with the orb of magic in the middle of the room pulsing in kind, it was clear that the artifact was the key to the magic now taking place.
“Now I’ll have all the power I need to finally wipe out the Sky Knights and claim this realm as my own!”
The orb dropped to the floor and began to spread out, into a circle. At first it looked like a whirlpool of purple magic on the floor. Then the vortex calmed and for the blink of an eye it looked like a dark purple version of the orange portals she’d seen before. Beyond the lens of that portal, pure blackness was all that could be seen. Then the instant passed and a geyser of dark magic erupted upward from the portal and light flowed into the room.
The unicorn finished her rant by saying, “Now do you see how hopeless your quest is, paladin? The darkness you dare to stand against knows no bounds!”
For her part, Rainbow Dash stood staring at geyser of dark magic pouring through the hole in the ceiling, seemingly dumbfounded. Now that the ceiling was done crumbling around it, the gap between the gayer and the edge of the hole it had carved in the roof was just big enough for a pegasus to fly through. The water around her hooves lapped at the skin of her legs, reminding her of the source of the light now cowering in her corner of the room. Putting the sensations together, a plan formed in her mind.
Finally looking down to the unicorn, Dash gave a bold grin and said, “That may be so, but neither does the light that stands with me!”
And with that Rainbow Dash took to the air and in the blink of an eye she shot off through the hole in the roof, into the open sky beyond.
In the few seconds that it had been flowing, the torrent of shadow magic had already grown to over a thousand feet high. At an altitude of perhaps ten thousand feet, by Dash’s best guess, the rising column of shadow magic seemed to reach its peak and stated to spread out, like some kind of high overcast cloud of blackness.
Pulling away from the column of dark magic helped lessen the sense of dread a little. But with a dark cloud of that same dark magic literally hanging over the entire mountainside and growing fast, the feeling that something bad was going to happen clearly wasn’t going anywhere.
Two thirds of the way between the ziggurat below and the spreading cloud of darkness above, the paladin stopped flapping her wings. As her upward momentum ran out she scanned the ground, smiling when she spotted a herd of colorful figures fleeing the temple. Although from this altitude there wasn’t much she could tell, she could tell a few things. First, the number of ponies was easily triple what the Sky Knights had gone in with. And second, the way the figures were overlapping it looked like most of those galloping away from the ziggurat were carrying the wounded on their backs.
Perhaps there had been a dungeon in there and the Sky Knights had freed the last of the prisoners? Now that she’d thought it, it made since, seeing as the Dark Summoner seemed to drain magic from pegasi to augment her own magic.
Shaking the thought from her mind, Rainbow Dash allowed herself to fall. She could find out who the extra ponies were later. Right now all that mattered was that the Dark Summoner’s fortress was as clear of friendlies as it was going to get. A good thing to know, especially since she had no idea just how destructive her plan would be, if it worked anyway.
Turning her mind back to the task at hoof, she set her eyes on the gap in the ziggurat’s roof around the base of the torrent of dark magic, and flapping her wings she pushed herself into a true dive.
Her plan was a simple one. And maybe not so much a plan as a question based on a simple observation she’d made. Namely, if stronger lightning kicks produced stronger bursts of light magic from the waters of night and day, what would happen if she hit the waters with the most powerful form of pegasus magic she could think of?
As her speed built up she had a moment for doubt to claw its way into her mind.
She’d never attempted her meteor strike technique at sonic rainboom speeds before, and certainly not into a pool of magic water that would have who knows what effect on the outcome.
Was this plan ever survivable?
A glance at the torrent of dark magic raising into the air answered her question with a definite, doesn’t matter, because if this doesn’t work I’m dead anyway.
In the back of her mind, a vision of her friends, five mares and an orange filly, flashed.
“Please let this work,” she whispered her prayer softly to the wind, as she certainly wasn’t loud enough to overcome the roaring air currents wrapping around her.
Then it happened. She passed the threshold and the air around her erupted in prismatic light.
Glancing over her shoulder a chill ran down Dash’s spine thanks to the disturbing sight of three fourths of a rainboom racing across the sky. The fourth that had gone into the pillar of darkness having been washed away in the torrent of dark magic.
Not that she’d expected a mere sonic rainboom to compete with that kind of dark magic, but it was unnerving to see what was supposed to be a ring of rainbow light be only a crescent instead.
Pushing the last of the idle thoughts aside, Rainbow Dash refocused on the last part of her plan, aimed herself toward the hole in the ziggurat’s roof, and prepped her wings for the hard turns that needed to happen as soon as she was back inside.
* * * * * * *
“That can’t be right…” the Dark Summoner muttered to herself. “Those sounded like fighting words, but then she just ran away.”
The unicorn’s eyes returned to the hole in the roof around the flow of dark magic. A spark of understanding flashed in those eyes before a red hoof was gently placed against her forehead.
“Right, pegasus… And I just gave her access to the sky.”
The obvious assumption and most natural combat move of any pegasus was the dive bomb. And while the room might not have been small, when one considered a pegasus moving at over a hundred miles an hour, they would be able to strike anywhere in said room in the blink of an eye.
With only two things in the room that needed to be protected, that was not much of a problem.
Her horn lit up, first glowing purple, and then growing darker until it was pure black. Tapping into her new fount of dark magic, she pulled three streams of energy off of the main torrent. Wrapping two of them around herself and the artifact she formed shield spells. The third stream she compressed into a dense spear of dark magic.
Sure, the paladin’s wing blades were of the counter element to the shields’ magic and would likely break them. But she didn’t need the shield to stop the paladin outright. She just needed to slow the pegasus down enough to perceive which shield had been attacked and use the spear to counterattack.
A shimmer of light disrupted the darkness of the room. Around the edges of the geyser of dark magic something could be seen. Although what was going on outside was hard to tell, the hints of prismatic light bleeding in from above was more than enough for the Dark Summoner to know that the paladin was making her move. Whatever it was, it was going to happen any second now.
In an instant, it happened. A rainbow flashed through the room, taking two sharp turns that made it look like a lightning bolt.
Only it didn’t end at one of the shields. Instead the pegasus at the front of the prismatic trail came crashing down into one of the pools of the waters of night and day.
And the world became light.
* * * * * * *
The light all around Rainbow Dash was so bright that she couldn’t even see her own muzzle. For a moment she even wondered if she hadn’t survived the landing and that this field of infinite whiteness was the afterlife.
Then she noticed the soothing sensation washing away her pain, just as she’d felt when Sweet Chime’s song had healed her. And with her mind turned toward her body, Dash quickly found the feeling of water lapping at her hooves. No, she wasn’t dead. She was definitely still standing in the shallow pool she’d landed in.
A quick review of her options weren’t good. Flying blind was suicidal. And feeling her way around on the ground when there was a portal to a world of darkness wasn’t much better.
With no other choice, Dash stood her ground in the pool, waiting for the light to fade.
After the eternity that was at most a few seconds, the light faded enough for that ever-present blue spot at the bottom of her vision, her muzzle, to come back into sight. And as the light continued to fade the walls came into sight. And that was when she was finally able to see that the light wasn’t fading at all. It was being drawn into the sacred wing blades.
The leading edges of the blades now shone with radiant white light. Strips of colored light flowed across the top of the wings, forming rainbows. And as those colors flowed off the tail edge of the wings, each color separated from the others, becoming like a row of ribbon-like flags, flapping in an unfelt breeze.
Aside from the sacred wing blades, the portal in the middle of the floor and the artifact clearly serving as its anchor were the only other forms of magic left in the room. A fact highlighted most by the sunlight poring in through the now vacant hole in the ceiling.
“This… can’t happen…” the Dark Summoner muttered.
Her shields, the spear, the geyser and the mass of dark magic that had been blotting out the sky, all of it had been dispelled by the radiant flash of light magic.
For an instant Rainbow Dash saw fear in the unicorn’s eyes.
That instant ended as that was also the moment the flow of dark magic resumed and the torrent once more shot out of the portal.
With none of the numbers in her head making any sense, the Summoner acted out of panic and did the only thing she could think of. Filling her horn with magic, she grabbed as much of the dark magic as she could and directed it at the paladin. The end result being that one third of the torrent of dark magic peeled away from the main stream, bent around and came down on the paladin like a waterfall of destruction.
Rainbow Dash’s world became one of darkness. The supercharged magic of the sacred wing blades wrapped themselves around her, doing their best to protect her. But beyond her little ball of safety, all she could see was darkness flowing down around her on all sides.
Even though she couldn’t see it, she could feel the ground beneath her crumble away under the shadow magic’s assault. On reflex she flapped her wings and pulled herself into a hover.
Licks of dark magic tried to push their way into the bubble of prismatic light, only to evaporate between the stands of colored light that marked the edge of her sanctuary. Even though the dark magic wasn’t reaching her, she could feel a stinging crackle in the air whenever a whip of dark magic evaporated near her.
With the attack snapping her mind back into combat mode, Dash decided against lingering to see just how long the sacred wing blade’s magic could hold out against the assault. Flapping her wings hard, she surged forward.
The torrent of dark magic parted like a waterfall as she emerged. In the blink of an eye she shot across the room, fixing her wings as she passed the Dark Summoner, allowing her left wing blade to graze the unicorn as she flew by.
The cut she’d left in the unicorn’s side was shallow, as Rainbow Dash hadn’t really intended to deliver a serious blow. She just needed her foe distracted long enough to strike the one thing that mattered. However, the sacred wing blades seemed to pass a far harsher judgement. Its magic flared from the contact, repelling the Dark Summoner as if somepony had kicked her in the side, sending the unicorn tumbling to the side of the room.
Not quite what she’d intended, but either way it left Rainbow Dash’s foe too distracted to cast any spells that might stop her from reaching her target at the back of the room.
Pulling her head and front hooves up at the last second, she thrust her wings forward and let them plunge into the dark artifact until her chest was pressed against its surface. With the sacred wing blades as deep as they could go, the cracks around the twin impact sites filled with bright white light and began to spread.
By the time the unicorn had pulled herself back to her hooves, the radiant cracks has spread across the entire front of the artifact and were now wrapping their way around toward the back.
“No!” the Summoner cried. “Without the shadow anchor, I can’t control this much dark magic!”
“I was kinda counting on that.”
As she answered, Rainbow Dash pulled her wings apart, through the artifact, shattering it as her wings made their way to a flared position.
As the obsidian stones of the now sundered shadow anchor fell to the ground, the portal on the floor collapsed in the blink of an eye. The mass of shadow magic already in the sky not only stopped growing, but it too began to collapse. Becoming like a vortex, sucking itself down into an orb right where the portal had been.
“You fool! You’ve killed us both!”
The unicorn’s shout was accompanied with a look of dread on her face.
Looking to the sacred wing blades and finding them still shining with prismatic light, the paladin said, “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“Th-then y-you’ve killed me…” the unicorn’s words trembled with despair. Yet holding a hoof over her bleeding side and with the stain of red blood trickling down, the Summoner allowed a pleading look to enter her eyes, as if begging the pegasus to take her to safety.
For the briefest of moments Rainbow Dash took notice of the unicorn’s blood. Red blood, not burning demon blood, or the bloodless sparkle of animated magic shadows, but the blood of a living breathing pony. And yet, the truth itself came into her mind, crushing any hesitation she might have had about leaving the unicorn behind.
“No. I didn’t. I’m just not going to save you from your own dark magic.”
By then most of the dark magic had left the sky and gathered in the growing orb of darkness. And though Dash had faith that the sacred wing blades would protect her from whatever would follow, she decided give them as much distance as she could anyway. Flapping her wings hard, she shot out of the room, leaving a rainbow in her wake.
Once out of the room, rather than going left, back to the main entrance of the ziggurat, she veered to the right, aiming for the window at the end of the hall. Just as she reached the window, the ball of dark magic in the other room exploded, a wave of darkness washed over her, and everything went black.
Truthfully, she wasn’t even sure if she’d made it out the window or not. All she knew now, was that she was being tossed around like a rag doll in a hurricane and she couldn’t see anything past the sheath of prismatic light trying desperately to protect her from the dark magic all around her. Tendrils of darkness licked at her, and yet even as the dark magic was pushed back by the glow of the sacred wing blades, she could feel sings of pain whenever one got too close to her.
Then the sea of black and slightly less black parted and she found herself being launched out into the open sky.
As any ace aviator could tell you, once you’re in a spin as bad as this, your sense of balance becomes worthless. But now that she could see the horizon, Rainbow Dash could finally be sure just how she was tumbling through the sky, and thus what she needed to do to fix it.
With a quick flap of her wings she stopped her left spin. With another flap she stopped her forward roll. This left her sailing through the air upside down and backwards. Which might have bothered her more had it not also given her the first clear view of the dark magic explosion that had sent her flying in the first place.
The explosion of dark magic had become a sphere large enough to not only consume the ziggurat, but the ruined city around it. And was it was still growing, enveloping the mountain side as it raced toward Cloud Sword and the other ponies fleeing down the mountain pass.
Between her momentum and distance, Dash knew there was no way she’d be able to reach any of the ponies on the ground in time to help. Not that she knew how to stop a wave of dark magic even if she could get down there. So all she could do was gasp and hold her breath as she waited to see what would become of the ponies on the mountain pass.
In the eternity of a second the explosion tore away at the mountainside, growing ever closer to the colorful herd. Then just before it reached them, it stopped and faded away.
Even as she allowed herself to breathe again, Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened as she beheld the void left where the dark magic had been. It was as if someone had taken a bite out of the middle third of the mountain. With it’s sudden lack of support, the top third began to crumble, becoming the mother of all avalanches as it collapsed into the missing half-circle in the side of the mountain.
Another look to the mountain pass and she was able to conclude that Cloud Sword and friends had gotten far enough down the path to avoid the avalanche zone.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Rainbow Dash suddenly became aware of her own surroundings. Namely, that she was surrounded by wagon-sized stones that had also been thrown by the explosion. She also noticed that the sacred wing blades had stopped glowing with prismatic light. The last of whatever power she’d put into them with the waters of night and day had clearly been spent protecting her from the blast.
Opening her wings, she finally righted herself and wove her way upwards until she was clear of the airborne debris field. Then setting herself on course to join up with Cloud Sword and company, she let herself relax and fly as swiftly as she could while also resting her weary body.
* * * * * * *
Once Celestia had suggested it, Twilight Sparkle had organized a daily prayer service in Ponyville. And doing so had proven to be quite the learning experience for Twilight.
The thing was that prayer wasn’t really a unicorn thing. Given the broad nature of unicorn magic, even the ancient unicorn tribe usually attributed the unknown to forms of magic that they just didn’t understand. Inventing gods or divine beings to explain the strange world around them was more like something that the pegasus or earth pony tribes did.
In fact the only article of faith in unicorn culture was ‘the divine right of queens.’ And the more Twilight looked into that, the more she concluded that it was something that had been made up to dissuade young upstart mages from claming the right to rule just because they knew a lot of magic.
Regardless, none of that stopped the ever-book-savvy Twilight Sparkle from finding some old pegasus prayer books and organizing a meeting time to gather and take turns reading from said books. Surprisingly enough Fluttershy volunteered to host the meetings. Although in hindsight it was easy to see that these meetings allowed the shy pegasus to actually be at her own house for a little while, without having to be alone.
“-so we ask your protection and guidance, that your celestial winds might guide the lost home.”
Having finished reading, Scootaloo stepped aside, leaving the podium that had been set up in the front yard of the cottage and rejoining her friends in the audience.
Seeing that no pony was quick to take the filly’s place, Twilight returned to the podium herself. She began skimming through the book, looking for a prayer that hadn’t been read recently. Thing was, very few of the prayers seemed aimed at aiding the lost or missing. Given the old warrior traditions of the pegasus tribe it wasn’t that surprising that most of the prayers seemed to ask for courage or protection in battle. Needless to say, that usually meant the same few prayers were read every time.
Now that the librarian thought about it, the fact that Scootaloo had chosen one of the few guidance prayers seemed odd, as the filly was one of the few who actualy read the protection in battle or adventure ones… why did she read one of the guidance ones today? And that wasn’t the only oddity of Scootaloo’s reading. Somehow it had felt different when Scoots read it compared to the times others had read it. She had used the same words as everypony else, yet there seemed to be something more when the words had come from the orange filly.
Feeling that the seconds had ticked on long enough, the librarian unicorn set that line of pondering aside and stopped flipping the pages of the prayer book at the first general blessing prayer she found. She opened her mouth, ready to read the prayer aloud.
The words never came.
Twilight’s horn flared to life. Bright purple light covered her eyes, and the world around her was gone.
Instead Twilight saw the ruins of the castle of the royal pony sisters, deep within the Everfree Forest. The moon presided over a starry night’s sky. The trees sat quietly in the still night air.
Looking to the moon and stars, Twilight made a mental note that the alignments were what tonight’s night sky should be.
Before she could ponder the meaning of seeing a night’s sky that had not yet come to pass, a rainbow appeared from the courtyard of the ruined castle and shot into the sky. A fuzzy darkness soon followed, surrounding the rainbow as it chased the source of the prismatic light.
As the rainbow arched overhead, toward Ponyville, Twilight could see that Rainbow Dash was the source, creating a rainbow in her wake. Now closer to the rainbow’s light, she could also make out the dark mass, which turned out to be a multitude of pegasi following the prismatic trail through the sky.
“Twilight!”
With the shout, the vision was gone and the unicorn in question found herself siting at a podium in Fluttershy’s yard.
“Twi, ya alright?”
The question from her farmer friend brought her attention to the fact that her friends were no longer with the rest of the prayer group. Instead they were gathered around her and the podium.
“I think so. What actually happened?”
“Yer horn lit up real bright, yer eyes got all glowy and ya just sat there for a bit.”
Closing her eyes, Twilight bowed her head and took a moment to collect herself. The first thing she felt was a sense of peace, all the anxiety over Rainbow Dash’s disappearance was gone.
Logically that made no sense. Seeing as she didn’t conjure it on purpose, a magic induced vision like that could well have been her own imagination playing out her hopes. Throw in the fact that the records of intentional efforts to see the future were of questionable quality at best, and the odds that she’d done so without even trying were astronomically small to say the least.
Yet, even though she couldn’t prove it, she knew that there was something to the vision. Something that she couldn’t explain and yet felt like it gave the vision weight. As if she was almost certain that it had come from outside. But if that was the case, where had it come from?
Then Twilight looked to the prayer book on the podium before her. Reaching up with her hoof, she closed it.
Speaking with her speech voice, she said, “When Princess Celestia first advised us to pray for our missing friends, I had my doubts. But now I think my mentor was right, that Rainbow Dash is the solution to this problem. In fact, thanks to the magic surge I just had, I have the feeling that she’s coming home very soon. And she’ll be bringing the missing pegasi of Equestria with her.”
* * * * * * *
Rainbow Dash and the Sky Knights returned to a hero’s welcome at Liberty Castle. Elder Cherry Blaze had gone all out in assembling the pegasi of Equestria at the castle, and they proved quite the cheering crowd to welcome those responsible for no longer needing to hide in remote safe houses. Sweet Chime sang for the returning injured and, by the time night had fallen what passed for a feast was spread out for all to enjoy.
Being the hero of the hour, once the dinner had formally begun, Dash found herself at the table of honor. And that was the problem.
Having already scarfed down her meal, she now found herself nursing a mug of apple cider that was clearly missing half its spices. While the dull taste helped, the main reason she hadn’t just downed it and left was precisely because it felt like it would be rude for her to leave so soon.
Ironic really, as much as she loved being the talk of the room, she was used to soaking up the praise of others while doing something. Singing autographs, posing for the cameras before heroically flying off into the sunset, attending the Rainbow Dash Fan Club meetings so she could retell her more awesome stories in only slightly exaggerated ways. Any of those would have been preferable to sitting at a table during a seemingly formal dinner like a trophy on display, look but don’t touch.
Sure, most of the room was talking about her, but that was the rest of the room, too far away for her to join in on any of the conversations. Here at the table of honor, she was surrounded by sky knights who’d been there and the Elder. None of whom seemed interested in anything more the quietly eating their dinner.
Dash took another sip of her… spiced apple juice… yeah, that was a more accurate name for this stuff than cider.
“Is something wrong?”
Cloud’s words almost jolted Rainbow Dash from her seat when she realized somepony at her table had spoken.
Once she’d realized that said somepony was the previous paladin, she answered, “Parties like this are too formal for my tastes.”
“I can only imagine what parties in a land of prosperity are like. However, I am too young to remember when prosperity existed in this land.”
“It was glorious,” Cherry Blaze said, with a hauntingly distant look in her eyes. “I remember when food had sugar in it.”
Not the conversation she was hoping for, but the fact that her tablemates were talking felt like enough of an invitation to Rainbow Dash.
“I know it’s only been a few hours, but is there any news on getting us Equestria ponies home?”
“You said it yourself,” Cherry said. “It’s only been a few hours. And in case you didn’t notice the Sky Knights are all pegasi. Trixie is the only unicorn ally we have who can even tell what most of those books say.” With a glance at the otherworldly champion, the elder added, “Unless you know how to read all those ruins and diagrams. Unicorn spell books just look like gibberish to me.”
Dash shook her head.
“Not really. When I help Twilight research, all I’m really doing is reading the titles on the spine. I’ve never even tried to make sense of the pictures in those spell books.”
“On the up side, now that the Dark Summoner has been defeated, it should be easier to find unicorns willing to help us get you home,” Cloud Sword said.
The cyan paladin looked down, at the half-empty mug between her hooves as a thought stirred in the back of her mind.
“You know, you never did tell me how my ancestor got back to Equestria.”
“She’s certainly earned the right to the paladin’s secret archive,” Cloud Sword said quietly enough that his words couldn’t be heard beyond their table.
Elder Cherry Blaze cringed for an instant before forcing a smile and saying, “Yes, of course. Cloud, could you be so kind as to show her?”
“Gladly.”
Yet, even as he got up, Dash couldn’t help but see ‘I told you so’ written all over Cloud’s face. Though she didn’t say anything, she couldn’t help but wonder what that was about as they took wing and he led the way to the nearest exit from the great hall.
“So what is this whole secret history thing, anyway?” Dash asked as soon as they were alone in the hallways of the castle.
“You know that statue of Lightning Dash out front?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“Have you ever noticed the space right behind it?”
The sky-blue mare paused. Having just passes it mere hours ago the front of the keep was fresh in her mind. She remembered a statue, stairs to either side of it, and a raised stone work area that was like the front porch of the keep. Yet for the life of her she couldn’t remember any thing between the pegasus statue and the front doors of the keep, just walking space.
“It’s just empty space isn’t it?”
“Exactly.”
Seeing the raised eyebrow on the mare’s face, Cloud smiled. Then he quickly looked down both ways of the hall, and seeing no pony else, he placed a hoof on just another white section of wall. Pushing harder, his hoof suddenly sank into the wall, sending out a ripple as if that part of the wall was a sideways pond.
As the stallion walked into the wall, the ripples spread out, coming to abrupt halts along the edges in a pattern that looked a lot like an arched doorway. And once the last of Cloud Sword had vanished from sight the ripples stopped and the wall once more looked the same as the any other wall in the castle.
Placing her own hoof on the wall, Rainbow Dash let it brush the surface. It felt solid, yet odd. More like running her hoof over one of Twilight’s barrier spells than a stone wall. Pushing a little harder caused her hoof to sink into the wall as well. After quickly withdrawing her hoof and finding it intact, she pushed it through once more, this time walking through the wall entirely.
On the other side she found herself at the top landing of a stairway. The only light was coming from small gems in the shape of four pointed stars, glowing with soft blue light. Considering that they’d been on the ground floor, the stairway could only lead down to a hidden basement.
“You see,” Cloud said from beside her, as he started descending the stairs. “There used to be a second statue right behind the one of Lightning Dash. As you already know, your ancestor came to our world’s aid three times. However, while his second and third adventures were reasonably well documented, his first… not so much. In fact, the tales of a child wielding a holy weapon of great power were largely discounted and rumor and myths by anypony who didn’t see it happen.”
As they reached the bottom of the stairway, the passage opened up into a large room. The walls were lined with bookshelves, although more than half of them were empty. More glowing star-like crystals dotted the ceiling, providing light to the room.
However, in the middle of the room was a statue of an armored tiger. The armor seemed to be primarily of body armor and a helmet, leaving the tiger’s limbs and tail unburdened. The armor seemed too simple, clean lines, sporting only a few sharp angles that would have been more for style than function. If the statue had ever been painted no evidence of that remained now, so the colors of the tiger and its armor could no longer be gleamed by looking at it.
“So who’s this?” Rainbow Dash asked the obvious question.
“If he has a name, no pony knows it,” Cloud Sword said. “He is a creature of myth. Truthfully, no pony is really sure he exists. But as the stories go, the armored white tiger appears only to the righteous, seen only when the lightning flashes. And those who have followed him have always found what they needed to insure that Heaven won the day. Some call him ‘the guardian of heroes,’ others call him ‘the storm guide.’ In even rarer stories he is said to actualy fight beside righteous ponies in open combat, and is given the name, ‘the thunder of the stars.’”
“And this is where Lightning Dash comes in.” Motioning to one of the bookcases with a few books on it, Cloud continued, “Some versions of his first adventure in our land claim that he was aided by the mythical white tiger.” Pulling a white book off the indicated shelf, he opened it and pointed to one of the last pages, and added, “This is the only version that claims it, but it says that the storm guide is who led Lightning to and from our world.”
The sky-blue mare looked down at the book. First she verified that it did indeed say that the mythical, armored white tiger opened the way that the otherworldly pegasus might return to his true home. Then she said, “That’s it?”
The stallion could only look down at his hooves and say, “Why do you think I’ve been at odds with the elder? I knew what she was offering you was little more than a rumor.”
“So you’re telling me that I risked my life for you ponies, and now I have to get my flank back out there and find some magic tiger that may or may not even exist?!”
“She has a point you know.”
The unexpected third voice made both pegasi spin to face its source, which oddly enough wasn’t the stairway. Instead, near the back wall where nothing had been a moment earlier, now stood a white tiger, arrayed in white and blue armor.
Cloud was the first to do a double take between the statue and the tiger.
“You! But if you’re real then wouldn’t that mean-”
“That I’ve had a paw in this chain of events?” The tiger finished before the question could be fully asked. “Yes, it would.” Looking to Rainbow Dash, he continued, “Though I must say that I am pleased at how little my champion needed my help.” Looking back to Cloud Sword he added, “Although it would seem you ponies have promised her a reward that it beyond your ability to give.”
“Wait, are you saying I’m stuck here?!”
Dash’s question drew a slow shake of the tiger’s head.
“No. After all that you have done for me, I will see to your reward. Besides, there are too many ponies here that don’t belong to this world. It would mess up too many timelines if you weren’t returned home.” Directing his attention back to Cloud, the tiger added, “Go, gather Equestria’s pegasi in the courtyard and I will open the path for them once more.”
Cloud Sword opened his mouth, intending to asked the tiger’s name, but the tiger had barely taken a step before lightning arched over his form and he vanished from sight.
* * * * * * *
It didn’t take long to gather Equestria’s pegasi in the moonlit courtyard. Although a few might have looked a little drowsy, the thought that they would finally be going home had most bright eyed and bushy tailed despite the late hour. Even many of the local pegasi were watching from the windows or doorways.
“Is that everypony?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Cloud and a few other sky knights all answered along the lines of ‘Yes, as far as we can tell.’
The crowd gathered in the courtyard consisted of hundreds of pegasi, many hovering or sitting on low clouds and yet even so the ground was packed. As Dash scanned the crowd, she thought she saw the armored tiger sitting in the fountain. But when she did a double take, she found the fountain was one of the few empty places on the ground. Looking a little closer, however, she noticed that the waters of the fountain looked like they were being disturbed even though no pony was there.
Taking that as her cue, she flew slowly out toward the fountain.
As she neared, three bolts of blue lightning flashed out of a cloudless part of night’s sky, striking the edge of the fountain. Side by side, the three bolts almost looked as if a set of claws had raked the air. Yet once they had struck, they did not fade. The lightning continued to arch as the three bolts merged into one column, and then spread, like a sideways, opening eye to form a ring about two stories tall. As the ring opened, looking through it didn’t show the rest of the courtyard. Instead the remnants of a ruined castle surrounded by an eerie forest could be seen.
Those near where the lightning had flashed had gasped and drew back from the magic spectacle. Rainbow Dash and Cloud Sword were the first two to approach the newly formed portal.
Dash’s eyes widened as she realized she knew that place. “The castle of the royal pony sisters,” she whispered. “It’s the Everfree Forest, everypony!” she said aloud.
The announcement drew cheers from most of the crowd. Although, those who knew it as more than just a familiar name on a map of Equestria gasped.
Looking through the portal himself, Cloud said, “Hmm… I thought your world was supposed to be a paradise.”
“It’s is,” Rainbow Dash answered, giving the stallion a pat on the back. “Dangerous places like the Everfree are few and far between in Equestria. Come to think of it, it’s probably one of the few places in Equestria you could open a portal this big without it being noticed.”
Turning her thoughts to the other pegasus ponies gathered around her, she turned to address her fellow Equestrian pegasi.
“Alright ponies! The Everfree Forest can be a dangerous place! So we’re going to gather in the courtyard of the castle ruins, then we fly out, high, and as a group. Stick together until we’re clear of the forest and we’ll all be home by dawn, no problem!”
Dash opened her wings and then stopped when she realized that they were still silver-clad. Reaching a hoof up to her chest, she began releasing the latches on the sacred wing blades’ vest. Pulling it over her head, she allowed the weapon to fall to the ground, landing right in front of Cloud Sword.
“I’m pretty sure these belong here, with you,” she said. “And besides, I pray I never to have to fight like that again.”
“As do I,” he answered, as he tossed them over his back like a set of saddlebags.
Opening her wings once more, Rainbow Dash turned to face the crowd. Simply showing them a bold, brave smile, she took to the air and flew through the portal. And they followed.