//------------------------------// // Part V: Changing Hooves // Story: Rainbow Dash and the Treasure of Canterlot // by Insert Pen Name //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash and the Treasure of Canterlot Part V: Changing Hooves A FiM fic by (Insert Pen Name)         Rainbow Dash was no stranger to being tied up. It was just one of those peculiar nuances that came with being a close friend of Applejack. The rope-wielding farmer was always keen to practise her rodeo skills whenever the opportunity arose, and many an afternoon nap in Sweet Apple Acres had ended with Dash waking up hogtied on the ground with her friend standing over her with a smug grin on her face. As a result of these experiences, Dash had become something of an expert on rope-work herself, and as such she was able to make an informed appraisal of the stallion who was currently tying her hooves behind her back.         The guy was clearly a rank amateur.         “What is taking you so long?” demanded Trixie. “The Great and Powerful Trixie could have tied a hundred knots by now!”         “So why am I the one doing this?” retorted the green stallion through a mouthful of rope.         “Because, Trixie is the beloved leader of this expedition, and you are merely the hired help. Beloved leaders do not tie knots,” explained Trixie.         There was a snort of derision from Dash’s right, where another stallion, a lanky maroon earth-pony, had just finished tying up Twilight and Scootaloo, and was now wrapping Twilight’s horn in aluminum kitchen foil.         “You have something to add?” asked Trixie, her eyes narrowed.         “No, not really,” said the maroon minion with a cheeky smirk.         “Good, now stand aside!” commanded Trixie. “Trixie wishes to speak with this one face-to-face!”                  With a shrug, the stallion finished his work, then trotted off to join his companion, who was still struggling with Dash’s bonds. With her minions occupied, Trixie knelt down in front of Twilight and restored the purple unicorn to consciousness with a gentle slap across the face.         “Ugh... wha- what happened?” groaned Twilight.         And then everything came flooding back to her.         “The Crest!” she shouted, as she tried to shoot to her feet, found herself quite unable to do so, and instead fell over onto her side.         “Ha ha ha! Not so hot now, are you, Twilight Sparkle?” cackled Trixie.         “Trixie!” snarled Twilight.         “The Great and Powerful Trixie, if you’d be so kind,” smiled Trixie as she produced the White Crest from her saddlebag. “Very good work, by the way; you saved Trixie an awful lot of trouble by finding this for her. Almost makes up for humiliating Trixie back in that mudhole town of yours... almost.”         Twilight ground her teeth together as she tried to summon her magic, only to discover the foil cone wrapped around her horn.         “As you can see, Trixie came prepared,” gloated Trixie. “It’s amazing how things get done when you’ve got a couple of hired grunts to do your bidding.” she added, gesturing to the two stallions.         “We prefer the term ‘mercenaries’, thank-you,” muttered the maroon pony.         “And just how are you paying these ‘mercenaries’?” asked Twilight. “Last time we met, you weren’t exactly rolling in bits. Heck, I don’t think you actually made any money at all when you were in Ponyville.”         “Yeah, what’s with that?” added Dash. “All you did was show up and act like a total jerk. You didn’t even try to sell us any tickets or anything.”         Do not question The Great and Powerful Trixie’s business practises!” snapped Trixie. “Besides, that little road show was peanuts compared to what this job will pay!”         At that moment, a fresh interruption arrived in the form of a grizzled grey earth-stallion in a weathered green boonie-cap. Trailing behind him by a stout rope was a very annoyed-looking orange filly, who was making a vain but spirited effort to curse around the wadded gag that had been stuffed into her mouth.         “Mmmph! Mmmhh-mmph, hmmm-hmph!” swore Scootaloo, ravaging the virgin ears of all those present.         “Sorry I took so long, Ma’am,” grunted the old stallion as he heaved the struggling filly in between Dash and Twilight. “She’s a lot faster than she looks. Lucky for us, she still can’t fly yet.”         “Hmm-Mmph!”         “You better not have hurt her,” warned Dash. “‘Cause nopony but nopony messes with my number-one fan and gets away with it!”         “Mmph!” affirmed Scootaloo.         “What do you want with us anyway, Trixie?” asked Twilight. “Why, Trixie thought that rather obvious,” sneered Trixie. “Trixie is here to steal your sacred artifact thingy and sell it to the highe-” “Yeah, yeah, I got that part just fine,” interrupted Twilight. “But what do you want with us? You’ve got the Crest, so why are you still hanging around?” “Yeah, I’m with the geek on this one,” said the green stallion. “What are we still doing here?”         “Are you questioning Trixie’s master plan?” leered Trixie.         “What plan? All we did was wait outside and then hit ‘em over the heads with shovels.”         “And it worked, did it not?”         “Well, yeah, but-”         “But nothing!” barked Trixie. “As for you three, Trixie was planning on gloating some more about how she stole your mystical ancient... lowercase-T-thingy, but since you insisted on taking the fun out of that as well, Trixie will just have to do without.”         “So can we go now?” asked Dash.         “Ha, you wish,” snorted Trixie. “Trixie has better things in mind for you three losers. Now then,” she said, turning to the leader of the three thugs, “You, sir, shall now escort Trixie back to the Ponyville train station.”         “What about us?” asked the green goon. “You two will remain here and take care of the prisoners,” replied Trixie. “Meet us back at the station when you are finished. And try to be quick about it, or Trixie will be leaving for Canterlot without you.”         “Roger that,” nodded the maroon mercenary.         With a self-assured huff, Trixie turned to leave, suddenly thought better of it, and turned instead to Rainbow Dash. Grinning broadly, Trixie knelt down to the pegasus’ eye-level, stared deeply into her eyes, and promptly swiped the pith helmet from her head with a flash of magic.         “Trixie will be taking this as well.” * * *         “How you holding up over there, Twi?” asked Rainbow cheekily.         “Peachy, Rainbow, just peachy,” answered Twilight dryly. “How about you Scootaloo?”         “Mmmph!”         Currently, our three heroines were experiencing a low ebb in their collective camaraderie, but this was perfectly understandable given their circumstances. After Trixie and her bodyguard had departed, with both the White Crest and Dash’s pith helmet in her possession, the task had then fallen to the two remaining mercenaries to interpret Trixie’s parting order. In their experience, “taking care of prisoners” was usually a fairly straightforward, if unsavoury, euphemism, but in this case they found themselves rather conflicted. On one hoof, murder was usually a swift and effective means of removing troublesome individuals, but on the other, there was also a foal present, and frankly, that just made things awkward. The third hoof opined further that there was more than one way to skin a cat, while the fourth hoof wondered why the hell anypony would want to do that in the first place. In the end, the two stallions had decided to forgo the fuss and bother of murdering them in the woods, and instead resorted to the time-honoured technique of dangling them precariously over the edge of the ravine that surrounded the ruined castle.                  Overall, it was not a particularly desirable situation.                  Escape attempts were being made, of course. Rainbow Dash tried climbing the troublesome cliff wall with her free hindlegs, Scootaloo tried chewing through her troublesome gag, and Twilight tried to find some way to force her magic past the troublesome foil wrapped around her horn, all without any degree of measurable success.         “Aargh, this isn’t working,” seethed Twilight. “I need to get this thing off somehow. Rainbow, I need your help.”         “What do you need me to do?” asked Dash.         Twilight thought for a moment, then explained her idea.         “Okay, here’s what we do: you and I will both try and swing towards each other at the same time. Then, once we’re close enough together, I’ll need you to to reach out and pull the foil off my horn.”         “And how am I supposed to do that, Twilight?” asked Dash. “I’m kinda tied up, if you didn’t notice.”         “Just use your teeth,” suggested Twilight.         “My teeth.”         “Yes.”         “On your horn.”         “Yes.”         “So you want me to start swinging myself at you, and try to catch a pointy object in my mouth?” recounted Dash.         “Ah, well, when you put it that way...”         “Besides, are you seriously telling me you can’t handle one little piece of tinfoil?” asked Dash with a cynical smirk.         “Pretty much,” said Twilight irritably. “My magic is fine, the problem is that none of my spells can get through. Don’t ask me why, because it’s very complicated and I really don’t feel like lecturing you right now.”         “That’s a first,” snorted Dash. “Hold on, what about that time we had baked potatoes at Applejack’s? You never had any problem with the tinfoil on those.”         “Well yeah, it’s not like the foil itself is immune; it just blocks my magic from getting past it,” answered Twilight.         “So wait, you’re saying that you can’t cast anything past the tinfoil, but you can still work with the tinfoil itself?!” asked Dash.         “Uh, yeah, that’s what I just said,” said Twilight.         Dash stared at the unicorn before her in disbelief.         “What?” asked Twilight.         “You can still work with the tinfoil,” repeated Dash.         “Well, yeah, of course I ca- ... oh.”         Scootaloo rolled her eyes.         “You feeling okay, Twilight?” joked Dash as Twilight magically ejected the foil cone from her horn with a comical popping sound.         “Come off it, Rainbow, I just got hit over the head with a shovel,” retorted Twilight. “Now close your eyes and think happy thoughts.”         A second later, the three ponies magically materialised atop the cliff, unbound, ungagged, and conveniently close to their abandoned saddlebags.         “How’re you holding up, Scootaloo?” asked Dash. “Third time's the charm?”         “I feel like my stomach’s trying to escape,” moaned Scootaloo.         “Meh, you’ll get used it,” said Dash with a good-humoured shrug. “So what now, Twilight?”         “We have to catch up to them!” declared Twilight. “I didn’t come this far just to lose the most important artifact in history to some two-bit magic act!”         “But they’re probably miles away by now,” groaned Scootaloo. “Who knows where they went?”         “Actually, I overheard Trixie saying that they’re taking the evening train to Canterlot from Ponyville,” recounted Twilight.         “Wow, that was convenient,” murmured Dash. “Good thing, Trixie’s such a loudmouth.”         “I’ll say,” nodded Twilight. “But we’d better hurry if we want to catch them.”         “Why don’t we just teleport back to Ponyville?” suggested Dash, provoking a fresh gag from Scootaloo.         “Sorry, no-go,” said Twilight. “It’s too far, and there are too many variables in between.”         “What do you mean?!” demanded Dash. “What about that time we saved Spike from those dragon punks? That was like, a hundred miles away, and you had no problem there!”         “That was different,” answered Twilight. “That was a DeM anomaly brought on by time-constraints.”         “Fine, whatever. Then how about I go?” suggested Dash. “You’ll never catch up to them on foot, but I can get there faster than you can say ‘sonic rainboom’.”         “I guess it’s the only choice we have,” conceded Twilight. “Scootaloo and I will head on up to Canterlot, then. We’ll meet you there outside the train station. Be careful, okay? Trixie may be just a big show-off, but those goons of hers look like they mean business.”         “Don’t worry, Twilight,” said Dash, rising heroically into the air. “They’ll never know what hit ‘em!”         “Rainbow Dash, wait!” shouted Scootaloo, rushing forward with her schoolbag. “You’ll need this.”         The orange filly quickly pulled out her powdered-cream bomb and passed it to Dash, who placed it gingerly within her own saddlebag.         “Thanks, kid,” said Dash warmly. “You really are awesome, you know that?”         The resulting expression of joy that spread across the young filly’s face would have killed a lesser pony. With a final parting nod, and generic boastful remark, Rainbow Dash shouldered her saddlebag, fired herself high above the forest canopy, and took off in the direction of Ponyville. * * * The evening train for Canterlot was already pulling out of the station by the time Rainbow arrived. Resisting the urge to descend upon it immediately and make a potential scene, Dash followed patiently behind a while as the train drove further and further from Ponyville. Confident now that she would not be seen, Rainbow swooped down and landed daintily upon the back of the caboose, all the while wondering how she was going to recover both the White Crest and her pith helmet from Trixie and still make it out in one piece. Fortunately, a solution presented itself inside the caboose. The conductor, having finished his round of ticket checks, was dozing heavily off in the corner, his foreleg clamped around a half-empty bottle of Berry-Shine. His navy-blue jacket and kepi were hung upon a set of pegs on the wall behind him. Rainbow took one look at the abandoned uniform, then one look at the sleeping conductor, then one more look at the uniform just to be sure, then broke into a devious grin as an idea was formed. A few minutes later, Rainbow strode casually into the lounge car, dressed rather smartly in the borrowed conductor’s uniform. Her distinctive mane had been securely tucked into the kepi, and her khaki jacket was hidden beneath the larger blue one. All in all, it was one of her more successful disguises, and it was with self-assured confidence that Rainbow scanned the lounge car in search of her quarry. Fortunately, the evening train to Canterlot was never a particularly crowded affair, so it did not take long to locate Trixie or her goons in the sparsely populated car. The three thugs were huddled around a table in the far corner, discussing in eager whispers what they might do with the proceeds of this endeavor. Suggestions ranged from private airships, to gold teeth, to wild debauchery, to a logical combination of all three. Dash was sure to give the treacherous trio a wide berth. Trixie, in the meantime, was seated at the bar, and was doing her level best to make life difficult for the elderly barkeep. Her own saddlebag lay just beneath her barstool, and the stolen pith helmet was still perched atop her head, albeit in a rather less stable fashion then when she had departed. Dash briefly considered tossing the magician out the window on the pretense of not having a ticket, but quickly realised that this might cause more problems than it would solve. Fortunately, Trixie herself was quick to provide a suitable alternative. “Trixie demands another strawberry daiquiri!” shouted Trixie as she added another fine specimen to her growing collection of empty glasses. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” questioned the barkeep. “Do you doubt the Great and Powerful Trixie’s ability to drink?” scoffed Trixie. “No, merely your ability to get up again afterwards,” muttered the barkeep. Smiling devilishly, Dash silently sauntered up behind the drunken mare. The barkeep cast an inquisitive eye at the young pegasus, noted the conductor’s uniform, and beheld salvation. After receiving an approving nod from the barkeep, Dash reared up behind Trixie and wrapped her hooves around her barrel. “Hey, what do you think you’re *hic* doing?” demanded Trixie. “Sorry, miss, but you’re over the limit,” said Dash in a lowered voice. “What limit? The Great and Powerful Trixie knows no limits!” Across the room, the three thugs watched detached amusement as their employer was unceremoniously dragged out of the car by the pegasus conductor. The door was quickly slid shut behind them, and a moment later the muffled sounds of a half-drunken struggle reached their ears. This lasted for only a minute or two before the car was relatively silent once again. “Shouldn’t we be helping her?” asked the maroon stallion. “Not part of the deal,” answered their leader gruffly. “Besides, she knew what she was getting into. Now where we we...?” As the three stallions returned to their fanciful discussion, Rainbow reentered the lounge car, proudly sporting a respectable black eye on her face, and her newly reclaimed pith helmet beneath her wing. Relieved that she had not aroused the suspicion of Trixie’s goons, Rainbow trotted casually over to where Trixie’s saddlebag still lay beneath the barstool. A quick check inside revealed the White Crest still nestled snugly in the bottom. Grinning broadly, Dash shouldered the bag and strode triumphantly to the far door, there to make a discreet exit. Or at least, so she would have done, had the door to the lounge car not suddenly burst open, revealing an enraged blue unicorn with her mane askew and a black eye of her own to complement Dash’s. Trixie spotted Dash in an instant and immediately hurled herself at the pegasus, screaming at the top of her lungs. “After her, you fools!!!” The three goons leapt from their table and charged towards Dash, who reacted by casually stepping through the door and quickly sliding it shut just as they reached it, with predictably comical results. Cackling madly to herself, Dash turned on her hoof and sped down the corridor, doffing her disguise as she went and replacing it with her explorer’s garb. All she needed was to get outside the train, and she would be home-free. After a short run, Rainbow came upon a service ladder to the roof of the train. With Trixe and her goons likely seconds behind her, Dash launched herself up the ladder, fired through the hatch, landed neatly on the roof of the train, and ducked down with a surprised yelp as the train entered into a low-arching tunnel. “Gah! Stupid train,” she swore to herself. “Why’s there always got to be a tunnel?” Having recovered from the initial shock of nearly having her head taken off, which modern physicians now tell us is an important part of a balanced healthy lifestyle, Dash flattened herself against the roof of the car and began crawling toward the engine in a paltry effort to put some added distance between herself and her pursuers. Eventually the tunnel came to an end, and the train emerged into the daylight, whereupon, on a completely unrelated note, a murder victim was discovered in the car below. Up on the roof however, Dash drew herself up and beheld the ivory city of Canterlot, stained gold by the now setting sun. Grinning triumphantly, Dash adjusted her pith helmet in a cinematic manner, spread her wings, leapt into the air, and was promptly greeted by a curious sensation not unlike flying headlong into a brick wall. “Ha! Did you really think you could escape The Great and Powerful Trixie so easily?” Dash quickly picked herself up off the roof of the car and shook herself back to her senses as Trixie and the two young thugs advanced on her position. The third thug was nowhere in sight, and as Dash began to instinctively back away from her encroaching foes, she discovered the most compelling reason for this... “End of the line, kid,” said the older stallion. “We’ll be taking our silver trinket back now.” “No way!” shouted Dash defiantly. “This is an important artifact; it belongs in a museum!” “Trixie has no time for this cheesiness,” snarled Trixie. “Get her!”         One of the two stallions (it doesn’t matter which at this point) immediately responded to Trixie’s command by lunging at Rainbow with outstretched hooves. Dash responded in turn with an amateurish, but otherwise successful, roundhouse kick, before hurling herself from the train and spreading her wings wide to catch the wind. Being able to fly has that effect on action scenes; it’s simply unavoidable.         “Out of my way!” shrieked Trixie as she shoved past her minions. “Trixie needs a clear shot!”         But Rainbow Dash was already well out of range. For a moment, Trixie stared after the departing pegasus, her left eye narrowed in agitation and her right eye twitching for much the same reasons. Finally, she rounded on her minions with a determined grimace.         “Hurry, you fools; to the engine! We may still have a shot at this!” * * *         Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, was enjoying a well-deserved breather atop a nearby cloud. The White Crest was secure, her hat had been reclaimed, and Trixie had been served yet another bitter helping of humble pie a la mode (Pinkie Pie would have wanted it no other way). Confident in her victory, Dash rolled over to peer over the side of the cloud, and saw the train to Canterlot rolling freely down the mountain track... back towards Ponyville, sans engine.         “What the-?”         Scanning frantically up the track, Dash soon spotted the wayward engine, chugging up the mountain at an alarming speed as thick, caustic purple smoke billowed from its funnel.         “Trixie...” muttered Dash.         Without hesitation, Dash dove off the cloud towards the charging engine. Trixie had no chance of beating her to Canterlot by train, of course, but if she reached the station before Twilight and Scootaloo... Dash knew what she must now do.         “Alright, Scoots, let’s see what this little chemistry project of yours can do...” * * *         “Out of the way, you fools!” shouted Trixie as she pushed her minions aside to direct another bolt of magic into the engine’s furnace. “Trixie has no time for your incompetence!”         “You know, you could try to be nice to us for a change,” muttered the green goon.         “Trixie could... but she won’t,” snapped Trixie. “Now keep shovelling coal on!”         The leader of the gang, meanwhile, was staring intently out the window when he saw a distinctive shadow pass overhead.         “She’s back!” he yelled out in alarm as the clang of landing hooves reached their ears. “She’s trying to sabotage us!”         “Well don’t just stand there!” shrieked Trixie. “Get up there and stop her!”         Atop the engine, Rainbow was hurriedly digging through her saddlebag in search of the rusted tin can Scootaloo had given her. No sooner had she finally put her hoof to it when she heard the clanging hoofbeats of somepony behind her.         “Alright, punk!” shouted the maroon minion as he balanced himself upon the top of the engine. “You may have given us the slip twice already, but there is no way that I’m going to let you- hey, put that down!”         Dash calmly ignored the stallion’s pleas as she quickly shook the can between her hooves then dropped it neatly into the funnel. The maroon minion’s eyes widened in horror as Dash kicked off into the air and turned to him with a smug grin.         “You might want to get down,” she said casually.         For a second, the word seemed to come to a standstill, notwithstanding the fact that the train engine was still chugging furiously up the hill. Then all of a sudden, a great bang like thunder rent the air, as red flames belched out from the funnel. Rivets popped violently from their holes like bullets, and great jets of smoke and steam erupted from the seams. Seconds later, the wounded engine ground to a screeching halt, the loud groaning of the much abused brakes matched only by the enraged shrieks of a certain villainous magician. Grinning victoriously to herself, Dash banked around, climbed high into the air, and soared off towards Canterlot as the last rays of the sun cast their ruby glow upon the city’s ivory towers.         “Who says kids these days never accomplish anything?” chuckled Dash. To be continued...  DeM: Deus ex Machina