“Come on, we’re going to miss it!” a little purple maned filly called to her friend.
“Okay, Firefly! I get it, I’m coming!” another filly cries, rushing to catch up. With an orange mane that looked ruffled as if she had just woken up, she sighed. “Why are you so eager to even see this? It’s not like any of it’s real.”
“Because it’s fun!” Firefly exclaimed. As they began to weave in and out of various shrubberies and obstacles in their path on the way to their destination, they stumbled onto an empty airfield, and they stared in awe as they watched a plane take off.
“Wow,” the other filly whispered.
“Isn’t it awesome, Sky?” Firefly muttered, and Skylark could only nod in agreement.
“But this isn’t the expo, so let’s get moving!” Firefly suddenly urged, startling the other pegasus filly. “Let’s go!”
Just as they were about to take off, however, they noticed a groaning figure pick herself up out of a crater they hadn’t noticed before. Rainbow Dash crawled her way out of the small impact groove before settling on her barrel and pulling her glasses up. Groaning in exhaustion, she rubbed her eyes.
“Ow.”
Intrigued by how Rainbow was dressed, Firefly began to approach her. Feeling a tug on her tail, she looked behind her, annoyed to see Sky biting down on her tail. “Firefly! We don’t know if she’s safe to approach!”
“Of course she’s safe,” Firefly rolled her eyes, “She’s wearing a uniform! Soldiers wear uniforms, don’t they?”
“Well, yeah,” Sky said, “But we don’t know if she’s a nice soldier.”
“What? Who’s there?” Rainbow cried out, now hearing the chatter going around her. Meeping at the sudden reaction, Firefly and Skylark hid behind a bush.
“Hey, does anypony know what’s going on here?” Rainbow shouted. “Why were there portals? And why are there planes going around? Aren’t those useless nowadays?”
“Useless?” Firefly cried out before stepping out of the bush. “Are you kidding me? Those planes you just called useless are helping us win the war against the Crystal Empire!”
“Firefly!” Sky called from behind the bush. Firefly turned to glare at her friend but could only see Sky’s desperate look for her to come back into cover.
Rainbow didn’t know what was happening at all. Bewildered, beaten down and confused, she questioned the little filly now confronting her. “Wait, what? War? What war?”
Firefly now turned to look at Rainbow with disbelief plastered all over her face. “You’re a pegasus soldier, and you don’t know about the war between Equestria and the Crystal Empire? What the heck?”
“Whoa whoa whoa whoa, wait,” Rainbow jumped into the air, waving her forelegs around. “We’re at war with the Crystal Empire?”
“Of course we are!” Firefly assured, now getting annoyed with Rainbow’s incomprehensibility. “Since last year! Where the tartarus have you been the past six months?”
Rainbow could only begin to comprehend whatever the living buck was happening at that moment. “I, uh, wha?” sputtered Rainbow. As she tried hard to think of impending wars, none could be so ridiculous as a war with the Crystal Empire. Shining Armour and Cadence would never let it happen. Never. And to Rainbow, the thought of there being a friendship problem in the first place to start a war was insane!
“But we just yesterday we went over there and everything was fine!” Rainbow cried and Firefly widened her eyes in excitement. Sky realized what she had said too, as they both ran up to Rainbow’s side.
“You’ve actually been to the Crystal Empire? How many ponies did you have to fight-” Firefly motioned jabbing with her hooves “-To get in?”
“I didn’t fight anypony,” Rainbow Dash said, backing away. “I just walked in.”
“Now we both know that’s a lie,” Sky accused. “You can’t just trot into the Crystal Empire. Not with that big mean shadow pony watching over everything.”
Rainbow’s ears flicked at something the little white filly had said. Picking her up, Sky squirmed in Rainbow’s grip. “What shadow pony?” Rainbow interrogated, and Sky whimpered. “Right, sorry,” Rainbow whispered before setting her down and fixing her up.
“This pony named ‘Sombrero’ or something, he apparently enslaved his entire nation and waged war against all of Equestria and the lands around us,” Firefly muttered, bored. “Apparently, he wants to rule the world.”
Rainbow couldn’t help but gape at Firefly and Sky, switching her head back and forth between the two. “S-Sombra? But I thought my friends and I defeated him a while back…”
“Nopony’s been able to beat Sombra.” Sky narrowed her eyes, “Only somepony with the Princess’ power could defeat him… Are you a spy from the Crystal Empire?”
“What!?” Rainbow fluttered her wings at the accusation. “How could you think that?”
“Well, you are talking about Sombra as if he’s just another everyday thing to you,” Firefly explained, “And your uniform isn’t one I’ve seen before ever since the war started.”
“How can you be a pegasus and not recognize my uniform?” Rainbow asked, now bewildered at the little filly’s absent knowledge. “I’m a Wonderbolt, one of many in the best flying squadron in the whole of Equestria!”
“A what now?” Sky and Firefly asked together, and Rainbow facehoofed.
“Work with me, here,” Rainbow pleaded, “Don’t you know who the Wonderbolts are?”
“Never heard of them,” Firefly said, before seeing the fireworks going off in the distance. Growling, she tugged at Sky’s mane. “And now, thanks to you, we’re going to miss the expo! Come on, Sky,”
Firefly then began to bolt with Sky’s mane still clutched between her teeth. Sky waved at Rainbow before they disappeared down a bend. She still couldn’t fathom what was going on around her. Planes in Equestria? A war with the Crystal Empire and the return of King Sombra? No mention or knowleged of the Wonderbolts at all, and they would’ve been one of the first to have been called in for a fight. None of it was adding up, and Rainbow had only been here for what she thought of, at most, to be a half hour. With nothing else to do, she began to follow the path of destruction the two little fillies had left behind.
War… Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe it. As she kept thinking over what she knew about past events, there was only one that could coincide with what she had just learned. Shaking the thought away, she thought about her friends in Ponyville. Yes, Ponyville. That sounded like a good idea.
If she could just go over there and talk to her friends, maybe this would all make sense. Why nopony seems to remember who the Wonderbolts are, or why Sombra’s back. All she could do at the moment was hope that following those two little fillies would lead to some answers.
“I think I’ll just take a bite out of Applejack’s book here and say…” Rainbow began as she rounded a bend and found at least five hundred ponies milling about a decorated market place, “What in tarnation?”