//------------------------------//
// Chapter 22: Tower of Trials 
// Story: The Engineer’s Wings 
// by Keeper of time RD 
//------------------------------//

Inside the tower, the ponies found a large foyer with checkerboard black and white tile floors, white marble walls, and crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. To the left, right and along the back sides of the room were three staircases each.

Rainbow Dash looked around with a suspicious raised eyebrow and asked, “Why would there be nine staircases to the next floor?”

Scootaloo shook her head. “There’s magic everywhere in here. It’s kinda bright to me, almost like they meant to blind the goggles when they built it.”

“It was a staff at the time,” Twilight corrected. “Though I suspect you are correct. Given that whoever built this place intended the Staff of True Light to be used to find it, they would have assumed that anypony who got this far could see magic.”

However, Rainbow Dash’s eyes were drawn to a crest painted on the floor in the middle of the room. The crest was a maze-like pattern surrounding a four-pointed star. The star was aligned to the door and the three sets of stairs. And just beyond the three points of the star that were aimed at the stairs were a horseshoe, a horn and a set of wings. “It’s almost as if they made a path for each of us,” she commented.

“Yes,” Twilight said. “But, we really should stick together.”

A round of nods agreed with the idea as the team gathered near the middle of the room.

As they looked at the nine staircases, it was Applejack who asked the inevitable question. “So, which one are we taking?”

“This is supposed to be the pegasus treasure of the set, isn’t it? So maybe we should take one of the three on the wings side of the room,” Sweetie Belle suggested.

“That still gives us three options,” Apple Bloom said.

As they looked up, what they could see of the next floor was that all of the staircases led to a different, narrow hallway.

Pinkie Pie hopped forward, saying, “Eny, meany, miney…” She didn’t get the chance to say ‘moe’ before light came rushing in toward the team, forming magic barriers.

It wasn’t hard to notice that ten walls of magic were forming, and it wasn’t hard to guess that the tower wasn’t happy that the ponies had chosen to stay together. Yet the magic came so quickly that only Rainbow Dash reacted in time.

“Lookout!” she cried. Leaping and tackling Scootaloo, Dash managed to get trapped in the same magic pathway while the others each found themselves isolated by transparent walls of magic.

“Twilight can you get us back together?” Sweetie Belle half asked, half pleaded.

The elder unicorn’s horn glowed for a second, then she shook her head. “No good. There’s a teleportation ward in here.”

The magic barriers now clearly left each pony with a staircase of their own. And the pathways formed did indeed force the earth ponies up the three stairways closest to the horseshoe symbol on the floor. And the pathways where the unicorns stood clearly took them up the stairs closest to the horn icon.

Yet before anypony could think to set out down their path, a mechanical pony seemingly made of bronze came walking into view from behind one of the staircases. Its form was a frame with exposed gears at the major joints, monocles seemed to be in place of eyes, and a brightly glowing gem held in the chest seemed to be the source of the magic making it move.

It reached the side of the barrier, and the barrier seemed to weaken, allowing the mechanical pony to push its way through the magic wall and into Pinkie Pie’s lane.

“Hi!” the pink pony greeted it cheerfully as in neared her.

Opening its mouth, the bronze pony revealed a nozzle. Rather than answering with words, a spray of steam came from the nozzle.

“Pinkie! Run!” Twilight and Scootaloo yelled simultaneously.

“Why? It’s not that hot,” Pinkie Pie said. “It even tic-” she started to add, but her giggling voice was suddenly cut off once she was fully enveloped in the steam.

Then the flow of steam stopped, and the cloud evaporated, leaving no trace of the pink pony.

“What happened! Where did she go?” Fluttershy cried out with clear panic edging its way into her voice.

“There’s banishing magic in that steam!” Twilight answered. “From what I felt of the magic, if somepony reaches the top of the tower, the defensive magics of the tower will shut down and the banishing spell should cancel.”

Then the bronze guardian started pushing its way into the lane of the earth pony filly.

“Apple Bloom! RUN!” Applejack cried out, kicking the barrier that separated her from her little sister.

The younger farm pony didn’t need to be told twice and bolted the only way she could, down the path and up the stairs.

With the filly off at a gallop, the mechanical construct seemed to lose interest in her and started pushing its way into Applejack’s lane instead. 

“Ah stand corrected,” the elder farmer said. “Everypony RUN!” she finished then followed her sister’s example and scrambled up the stairs before her.

The guardian hadn’t even made it halfway into the next lane before the remaining six ponies bolted, each going up the stairway assigned to them. With the one exception of Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo who had gotten trapped in the same lane and thus headed up the same set of stairs together.

The next few floors were like a maze. Endless marble halls with pointless turns and branches, some ending in dead ends, forcing them to backtrack and try another way. They found the occasional trap that tested the speed or timing of those running the maze, like nozzles that would spray banishing steam for a moment then turn off for a moment. Every now and then, they heard the sound of a friend’s hoofsteps on the other side of a wall. But most of the time, they heard the heavy hoofsteps of the bronze guardians. Although the guardians never seemed to move faster than a walk, so even when they did cross paths with one, Rainbow Dash would just scoop up Scootaloo and fly past it so quickly that it never had the chance to spray them. But their appearances were enough to make the two pegasi feel that slowing down to a trot was always a bad idea.

Eventually they arrived at a floor that contained three metal arches, each attached to a mechanical frame. The frames had a few gears here, a few wires there, but not enough to make anything. As a result the box-like frames looked like incomplete machines. The room was also divided into three sections, each separated from the others by a magic barrier like the ones that had divided them from their friends. But each section also had three stairways that could emerge into it.

Then Scootaloo spotted the shelves in each section holding parts. And not just any parts, but the parts that mixed cloud, solid rainbow, and silver metal. In other words pegasus engineering parts.

“There’s no more stairs up. Are we supposed to do something with these arch things?” Rainbow Dash asked the obvious question. Then looking to the two stairways they could reach but hadn’t come out of she added, “Or are we supposed to go down one of those?”

Almost as if fate was answering them, Applejack came up one of the stairways in one of the other sections. And a few seconds later, Apple Bloom came up another one, entering into the same space as her big sister. A few moments later, and Rarity and Sweetie Belle reached the top of their paths emerging into the third space.

“What do we do now!?” Sweetie Belle asked, her breathless tone telling the tale that she too had been pressured by the metal guardians to keep a brisk pace in the labyrinth floors.

“It’s kinda obvious,” Scootaloo said, pointing a hoof to the shelf of spare parts in the pegasus section of the room. “We use these to fix the arch machine things.”

“Darling, you’re the only mechanic among us! I haven’t a clue where all these parts would go!” Rarity said, pulling Sweetie Belle into a hug.

Scoots just rolled her eyes and darted for the silver gears on the pegasus section's spare parts shelf. Apple Bloom, Applejack and Sweetie Belle were quick to catch on. They didn’t need to be mechanics. The machines and the spare parts in each section were all identical, so all they had to do was copy Scootaloo as she put the parts into hers.

And while the earth ponies and unicorns couldn’t handle the cloud-based parts directly, they could still move them by grasping the silver conduits fused to them.

“Do you know what these things do?” Applejack couldn’t help but ask as she tried to copy the wires that Scootaloo had attached to the pegasus section’s machine.

“Not a clue!” she answered, grabbing another cloud part and lining up its connection points where the best fit seemed to be.

“Well, whatever these things do, you’d better make them do it soon! I think we’re running out of time!” Rainbow Dash said with her ears keyed down one of the stairways.

Turning her ears to do the same, Scootaloo heard the slow clang of a bronze guardian’s hoofsteps. 

Stepping back, she looked over the machine she’d assembled. Everything seemed to be in place, but the parts she’d put together had left a hoof-sized space for one more part. Yet dozens of parts still remained on the shelf. She darted over to the shelf and gave the remaining parts a closer look. At first, the ones that were the right size were all the wrong shape, so she started moving the larger parts to see if they were hiding anything. 

The guardian’s hoofsteps grew loud enough to make it clear that one was coming up the stairs behind her.

“Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle said, now that she and the Apples had caught up and found themselves in the same conundrum of having a clear gap where something should be and the sound of a guardian approaching from one of the stairways.

“Working on it!” she answered with a mix of annoyance and panic in her voice.

Then the young engineer’s eyes fell on a large, dark cloud part that had a silver rod sticking out of it. While the part as a whole was way too big, the rod sticking out of it was just the right size and shape to fit in the gap.  Grabbing it, she rushed it back over to the machine attached to the archway, jammed it into place and pulled the lever that seemed to be the ‘on’ ‘off’ switch for the device she’d assembled.

All three archways flickered to life and a portal of swirling magic appeared in each. Through the earth pony portal an apple orchard could be seen, through the one by Rarity and Sweetie Belle a cavern glittering with crystals, and the portal before the pegasi showed several cloud structures awaiting on the other side.

“Huh? I guess you only need to fix one of them,” Scootaloo said, noting that activating hers had opened all three archways.

The labyrinth guardians had finally reached the top of the stairs.

“No time!” Rainbow Dash said. Then she scooped up the filly and darted through the portal before her, just as the others were jumping through their portals.	


* * * * * * *


Dash and Scootaloo found that the portal had deposited them on a small cloud with a few small cloud houses attached. It soon became apparent that the guardians had no intention to, or simply couldn’t, follow through the portal. But after searching the houses, they found them to be normal in all ways except for the lack of anypony living in them, and they soon found themselves forced to fly to the next cloud. Of course since Scootaloo couldn’t fly on her own, Rainbow Dash had to put the filly on her back and carry her instead.

It was in this moment of reprieve that Scootaloo put a thought that had been bothering her since the battle in the Crystal Empire into words.

“Rainbow Dash, can I ask you something?”

“Ask away, Squirt! If you’re lucky I might even have an answer!”

“Is the only reason you’re my friend because you feel guilty over what happened to my dad?”

“W-What? W-Why would I feel guilty about your dad?” Dash asked with a sheepish voice that practically screamed she knew exactly why. Yet at the same time she was desperately searching her mind, certain that she’d only ever mentioned cleaning out his locker in Scootaloo’s presence before.

Despite the mare’s words, Scootaloo felt her answer, for at the same time as she was speaking, Rainbow Dash’s wings had stopped flapping for a split second and her muscles had tensed up. All of which the filly riding on her back felt as clear as day.

“On the day we fought in the Crystal Empire, Spitfire told me everything.”

“Everything, huh?” Dash responded no longer confused but actually suspecting that Spitfire had withheld a fair amount of information from the filly. She let the thought hang, waiting to hear just what the younger pegasus actually knew.

“Yeah, she told me all about how she’d scheduled the patrol when you’d have to go alone.  How she knew she was sending you into a trap. And how there was too much secret information involved, so she couldn’t stop you from inviting my dad on a mission she thought only you had the skill to survive.”

Rainbow Dash’s wings stopped flapping once again at the answer Scootaloo gave, and not for just a moment either. This time they locked into a steady glide. Her eyes became unfocused at the realization that apparently Spitfire did tell Scoots everything. Or at least more than she had told her fellow Wonderbolt.

Spitfire sent him into a trap… Spitfire sent us into a trap! And she didn’t say anything!

The revelation of betrayal burned at Rainbow’s mind, her heart, her very soul. Yet, a squeeze from the orange legs wrapped around her chest snapped her out of her daze. “I see,” was all she could manage to say at first. But once she’d landed on the largest cloud around, she added, “Spitfire was wrong. I never saw it coming. It was your dad who blocked the shot aimed at me. He… I’m only alive because he took the hit for me.”

Setting Scootaloo down on the cloud in front of her, she bowed her head so she could look straight into the filly’s eyes when she continued.

“I didn’t know who the pilot of the silver plane was when you first impressed me. That said, yes, in the landing bay when I saw it was you, I went out of my way to be on your side because I knew I could never repay your dad directly, and so helping you seemed like the closest thing I could do to repay him. But! That day you agreed to be my substitute wingpony, from then on I was your friend because of you!

“After all the awesome adventures we’ve been through together, I want to be your friend because I know you’re an awesome pony with a good head on your shoulders and an even better heart. You are a pony worth being friends with. Even better than friends, in a way you’re like the little sister I never had!” Dash said, pulling the younger pegasus into a hug.

“Like… a sister?” Scootaloo said in a daze as if somepony had just told her that her wildest dream was true. “Do you really mean that?”

Adding her wings to the hug, Dash wrapped all but the orange filly’s head in blue feathers and nodded.

Scootaloo let herself sink into the elder pegasus’ embrace, feeling as if a weight had been taken off of her. Any fear that Rainbow Dash was only her friend because she pitied her melted away with the knowledge that their friendship was not only real but apparently stronger than she’d even known. Strong enough that she had family again.

Finally pulling herself free of the elder pegasus’ embraces, Scootaloo looked toward the massive three-story cloud building nearby and said, “Thank you, Rainbow Dash, you have no idea how much this means to me! But I guess we should get back to finding out how to get out of here and up that tower, huh?”

“Yeah, we probably should,” Dash answered. Then she took a moment to ruffle the filly’s mane before walking toward the front door of the only non-house, cloud building in the area.


* * * * * * *


Inside they found a large room like the pegasus version of a dojo. With the noteworthy exception of the fact that the entire far wall was a mirror. The three walls made of cloud were etched with a swirl pattern that seemed to be depicting wind. Also a few star-field or ocean-cliff paintings adorned those walls. The floor was especially soft, like the cloud version of a dojo’s practice mat.

The striking absence of anypony or even armor that might come to life under the power of some ancient enchantment caught their attention.

“Hello! Anypony home!” Rainbow Dash called out. Yet, like the cloud houses they’d searched, no answer came here either.

As the two pegasi drew near to the mirror, Scootaloo said, “I hope they don’t expect us to fight each other.”

“Not each other-” her own voice answered her question.

Both ponies jumped back in surprise as they watched their reflections walk out of the mirror wall.

“-Just yourself,” Mirror Scootaloo finished.

With that Mirror Dash gave a battle cry and lunged at Rainbow Dash. Hardly a moment later and Mirror Scoots also charged at her real self.

Immediately Rainbow Dash led her double into the air where the two punched, blocked and dodged each other with the speed, precision and fury of the trained combatant that Dash was. As the two blitzed around the air, striking and bouncing off of one another, it seemed clear that adult and her reflection were evenly matched.

The brawl on the floor was another story. Scootaloo did not meet her reflection head on as Dash had. Instead her first instinct was to bolt to the side. But that only bought a few seconds before her other self got close enough to tackle her, sending both tumbling along the mat.

It had been years since the filly pilot had been in a schoolyard fight, and it showed in both herself and her reflection in the brief exchange of completely undisciplined and ineffectual wild punches that were tossed about.

But unlike the even battle in the air, this fight on the floor quickly proved to be lopsided. Even though Scootaloo had come out on the bottom of the tumbling tackle, she was able to push her reflection off of her and pounce to put herself on top. Sitting on her reflection, she was able to pin her down in a way that prevented her from using her hind legs. Then Scoots used her forehooves to pin down her other self’s front legs. And as her reflection squirmed under her, it quickly became clear that, as weak as both fillies were, the reflection Scootaloo didn’t have anywhere near the physical strength of the original.

“Stop it! I don’t want to fight you!”

Scootaloo’s demand got her pinned reflection to stop squirming as if finally realizing that she had no chance of braking free as the original had when their positions were reversed. The anger that had been in Mirror Scootaloo’s eyes faded, and she even began to smile and start nodding her head.

“Yes,” the pinned filly mused. “If this is all the rage you have within your heart, you are truly worthy.”

“Rage?” Scootaloo asked.

Nodding her head toward the two Rainbow Dashes still fighting in full force, the pinned Scootaloo said, “Don’t you see? The rage in her heart is just as strong as the rest of her. But it seems you gave up on rage a long time ago. But the lingering spark I was created from hardly feels like rage at all. What was it? Righteous indignation, maybe? Whatever it was, it doesn’t feel like you let malice be a part of it.” Then turning her head toward the two blue pegasi, she shouted in a commanding voice, “Enough!”

With that, Mirror Dash broke off her attack, and Rainbow Dash fell back to a defensive hover, both looking toward the source of the command.

With the rest of the fighting stopped, Scootaloo felt free to back off and let her reflection up.

The two reflection ponies made their way over to the mirror wall. As they walked back into the mirror, a beam of blue light shot down from the ceiling. The beam stopped just in front of the mirror and started pooling in the air. Swirling faster and faster, the ball of blue magic opened up into a ring and continued to expand. Once the expansion stopped, the ring of magic was twice the size of the average mare. But more importantly, stone walls could be seen beyond the ring of magic. Although the energy crackling over the surface made it difficult to see what exactly was on the other side of the portal, it was definitely a portal.

“You did it Squirt!” Dash cheered.

“Yeah…” Scootaloo said nervously. Then after swallowing hard, she added, “I guess we have to go see what I did, huh?”

“Yeah! Come on!”

Despite her words, Rainbow Dash didn’t actually give her honorary little sister a chance not to. Scooping up the filly with her front legs and holding her close in a tight hug, she flew through the portal.