Rainbow Dash swam through the Aether, the movement of her wings making her feel almost as if she were flying again. There was a gap. She arrowed toward it, folding her wings and legs in.
So close…
The blobs suddenly closed in on the gap, blocking it off.
They could plan?
Then they mobbed her. Rainbow struggled against...nothing. They felt fizzy, like spectra, and when they passed through her it felt like she was conducting a low-voltage electrical current. Unpleasant, but nothing too bad.
But they didn’t impede her movements. Just her vision.
“Get off me!” she yelled.
They didn’t. Figured.
“Ack!” she choked out.
One of them was traveling through her body. She could feel it sitting near her heart, then traveling upward, giving her constant shocks as it moved.
“No! Get out you stupid—”
It reached her head, and then she felt a terrible ripping in her wings. It traveled down the rest of her body in quick, violent bursts. Rainbow Dash kept her eyes closed. Whatever was happening was something she absolutely did not want to see.
Didn’t stop her from feeling it though. She couldn’t move; the blobs had her in their grasp. She couldn’t even scream. That somehow made it even worse.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t even endure. She had dealt with crashes from every height imaginable. With the discomfort of being laid up in the hospital for months after smashing into a pen of storm clouds and having hundreds of bolts of lightning simultaneously shooting into her and frying her wing off. With almost drowning after crashing into Cloudsdale’s water reservoir.
This was worse. So much worse.
Rainbow fled into a deep, dark corner of her mind. A place where the pain was muted and where everything became a distorted shadow of itself. She drifted while changes went on in her body, while pieces of herself were ripped apart and replaced. It was hard to care, now. Hard to think, really.
She floated for an indeterminate length of time, burning. Always burning. She missed moving. It was a pretty fun thing to do. If only she could twitch an ear. Then it would be better. Then the pain swamped her again and she had to retreat to thoughtlessness.
If she let herself go far enough, she could almost sleep. Not too far, though. Every time she did it she felt like she was slipping. Like she was slipping and she wouldn’t be able to come back.
A cold shock ran through. She was doing it again. Back to the pain. The constant, grinding pain.
The shock of realization became less and less each time. If this torture didn’t end soon, she’d eventually succumb. Already she felt the temptation to drift off.
Then it started to lessen. Slowly. So slowly. She didn’t let herself acknowledge the change for the longest time, in case it was just a lull.
Maybe it will go away. Maybe I’ll wake up. Maybe this is a dream. Maybe it’s not happening. Maybe the Princess will come back, since the Everfree’s gone now—
Pain.
It crescendoed.
Thought too hard. Clouds. Flight. Wind. Crashing. Pain.
No.
Wind. Friends.
She felt better already. Almost as if…
The pain stopped. It was gone, completely. Rainbow tried to move, to open her eyes, to do anything. It didn’t work. Still. The pain was gone. Complete blind immobility was a cakewalk compared to the pain.
She waited. Blind, deaf, and unfeeling. Getting...bored.
She waited.
Well, might as well try to get away from the blobs. If they were still there. If she wasn’t dead.
She concentrated on her eyelids. Just her eyelids. Concentrated on them with the sort of fervor she usually reserved for flying. She felt a twitch and stopped her efforts, exhausted.
So she could move. A little. As long as she tried really hard. The next step was obvious: she needed to open her eyes.
If she was anyone else, Rainbow Dash would’ve given up after the tenth attempt. Or the hundredth, if she were determined. But she’d been through hundreds of attempts by now, enough that she’d lost count several times. Each time she got closer. The last time she’d gotten a flash of light.
This time she would succeed. She opened her eyes.
What?
It was as if whatever was keeping her frozen had simply...stopped. She blinked. Moved a hoof. Looked around. The blobs were gone. She was still in the Aether. She turned around. Blinked. The Princess was gone. With Twilight.
Celestia looked bright but cold. Her coat was a brilliant white, her ethereal mane tangling with the currents of the Aether around her, turning it violet with specks of every other color woven into it. But imposing as she appeared, she looked less...solid. Like she was stretched across too much space and was trying to keep herself from falling apart.
“Where’s Twilight? Did she escape?” Rainbow asked, rotating her forelegs, reveling in the feeling of being able to move. The Princess might be standing in front of her, but that wasn’t going to stop her. Not after...that.
Celestia held Rainbow’s gaze, her face expressionless.
“I know not what you refer to. Kindly describe what I and this Twilight did.”
Something was off. Rainbow Dash had heard a few of the Princess’s speeches before. They were warm and welcoming, simple, understandable words that nevertheless conveyed every iota of meaning Celestia wanted to express.
She took a breath. Not answering wasn’t an option. She was still the Princess, even if her face lacked the normal smile that graced it, even if her speech was aloof and distant.
“Me and Twilight were looking around, then you found us and gave her a spell that let her open a portal. I stayed behind to defend against the blob things. Then they got me. I...don’t know where they went, but if you can do a spell or find Twilight, you should do it before they find us again. I don’t want to go through that again.”
Celestia absorbed her words, still expressionless. Finally, when Rainbow opened her mouth thinking she needed to add more, the Princess spoke. “That was not me. It was my sister.”
“Sister?”
The Princess didn’t have a sister. That was common knowledge.
“Yes. Luna. I banished her a thousand years ago. The Nightmare possessed her, gave her power. Even here, it aided her. My power is but a wisp of a shadow,” Celestia said, then raised a hoof, forestalling Rainbow’s next questions. “I will tell you more. First. A spell. I assume you saw how the Nightmare fed knowledge to your companion?”
She waited for Rainbow’s nod, then continued.
“I will do something similar. Keep still.”
“Uh, Princess? I don’t have a horn. How am I supposed to use a spell?” Rainbow said.
“You have a horn.”
“No I—” Rainbow said, bringing a horn up to her forehead, then froze.
Something long and hard was sticking out of her head.
“What...” she said.
“The Constructs you ran into act to ascend anypony who enters this dimension. They are flawed. Most of those who have managed to open a stable conduit here have gone insane.”
Oh. Rainbow Dash felt...well, she wasn’t sure yet. She was surprised, certainly, but it was a dull sort of surprise. The kind you’d feel when finding out a member of the Wonderbolts had been cycled out. She guessed the impact would hit later.
“So...I’m an alicorn.”
It didn’t seem quite real. Like she was dreaming and just hadn’t woken up yet.
“Yes. Be still.”
Rainbow obeyed, if only because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Celestia’s horn lit up, the entire length glowing a hot and eager yellow. It approached. It was like staring into the sun.
A flood of information drowned out all coherent thought. Colors, concepts, shapes, numbers, memories, all blended into a big mush in her head. She could see Celestia looking at her with an odd expression. Something between pride and sadness. Then the Princess disappeared. She should have felt more, but just like discovering she was now an alicorn, the realization hit a wall before she could really process it. It didn’t help that her brain felt like it was moving inside her skull.
She stared off into the distance while she assimilated the experiences. Floating.
Then she was done. She shook her head and stared at the space where Celestia had been.
“Hey! Come back!” she demanded the swirling eddies of Aether.
I’m here.
Celestia? Where was she? Rainbow turned her head, scanning the area. Nothing.
I am with you.
Great. The Princess had abandoned her. At least she had that portal spell. Hopefully. She concentrated on teleporting. It didn’t work.
What was she supposed to do?