Rainbow Dash pulled her wingtips in and tilted into a tight corkscrew. The maneuver was flawless and so tight that any normal pony would have been thrown off course into a parallel course. The pony that was pursuing her, however, did not err. He followed Rainbow Dash’s course perfectly, moving at an even tighter angle to gain distance in an attempt to cut her off.
Accelerating, Rainbow Dash flew into a climb. She heard the jets of the other Pegasus pass just beneath her, and then change as he began to ascend alongside her. The two of them spiraled together, climbing ever higher.
For the first time since getting to Lyskymm, Rainbow Dash was not cold. It had been days since she had been able to fly all-out, and the strong muscles that kept her wings cycling provided more than enough heat for the rest of her body.
Of course, maneuvering at this altitude was not easy. It was, in fact, essentially impossible. The thin air made everything from motion to banking difficult, not to mention the effect it had on breathing. Even with her flawless and efficient lungs, Rainbow Dash was quickly running out of oxygen from her exertion. Her pursuer, meanwhile, barely moved his wings; he instead used them strictly to control his movements while the jets in his suit provided thrust. There was really no other way to operate under these conditions; unassisted flight simply could not be accomplished effectively- -and Rainbow Dash relished the challenge.
She suddenly spread her wings. The air caught in them, and she felt the familiar sensation of her bones creaking as she was forced to slow so quickly that she began to redoubt. The pony ahead of her attempted to do the same thing, but he could not slow quite as quickly. His jets gave him speed, but he was still heavy. He spread his wings and shuddered downward. By that time, though, Rainbow Dash had already circled around in a large vertical arc and was continuing to shoot upward at incredible speed.
The armored Pegasus used machines to correct his flight and to make him faster and stronger. That, Rainbow Dash knew, meant that she had the advantage. Even with all that technology, he was barely keeping up with her- -meaning he was not by default a superior flyer. The chase had been complicated and exhilarating, but Rainbow Dash needed to end it. She was running out of air and beginning to grow nauseous, a sensation that only grew stronger as she powered fathom after fathom toward the endless black, star-speckled sky overhead.
The only way to win was to do something that the other pony could not do. Which was exactly Rainbow Dash’s specialty.
Zel was once again driven back by a hoof to his chest. The thick clothing he wore for warmth gave him some padding, but the mute Pegasus who he was fighting seemed to know exactly where to strike for maximum pain.
As a zebra, however, Zel was more than stoic enough to continue fighting even after she tried to hurt him- -and to never once loose his composure, even as fear began to sweep over him.
The Pegasus was relentless. She did not seem to tire or to slow. Worse, her relentless forward impetus had pushed Zel back into the forest and into a deep ravine that was thick with dark trees.
The attacks suddenly stopped and Zel realized that he was both alone and standing in complete darkness. He immediately muttered a complicated zebric spell, and he felt a strange warmth in his eyes. The spell was not as powerful as it could have been- -he did not know the structure of its secondary couplets- -but it was adequate. He immediately became able to see in the darkness, at least slightly.
For a moment he took this as an advantage. In the past, it always had been. Fighting in pitch black, moonless conditions, this particular spell would allow him to strike unseen and without warning. Although the moon was out, it barely filtered through the trees, leaving only strange bright mottling on the mountain laurels and rocks of the ground below. It was almost perfectly dark.
And this time, the darkness proved not to be Zel’s ally. He saw a shape just outside his visual range, a dark thing moving amongst the black trunks in complete silence- -and then felt as a knife cut through the rear of his jacket. He turned to see the Pegasus girl disappear yet again, and saw the glint of a short knife in her teeth.
She turned and struck again. Zel raised his spear to block, but she ducked around it and struck him in the leg. He winced and dropped to one knee, raising his spear and successfully blocking another attack. The mare jumped back, landing perfectly on a horizontal fallen truck before vanishing in a near instant. Before she did, Zel saw her eyes. The metal irises had opened completely, revealing numerous massive, reflective pupils. Zel’s heart fell as he realized that he had not been driven into the dark woods by accident. She could see perfectly. Even without the moon, or without any light at all, she would never stop seeing.
“By Celestia’s sun,” he whispered under his heavy breath. “What have those fools done?”
No one answered. There was no one to answer, or at the very least no one who could talk. The answer came, though, in the form of a rock kicked outward from some dark shadow. Zel did not have time to duck, and it struck him in the face. Or, more precisely, it struck him in his oxygen mask.
Immediately he felt cold air on his lips. He gasped, realizing what that meant. The mask had been at the very least cracked, and he was losing oxygen to the unbreathable air outside.
“No, no!” he cried, trying to cup his hooves over the hole. “Please don’t go!”
In his distraction, he did not notice the sudden rush of white wings behind him. He was struck in the side, and he heard the ripping of steel through fabric. Although his soft, striped zebra skin remained intact, he realized that several key seams on his coat had been ripped away.
“NO!” he cried again, raising his spear. This time he managed to strike his target, if only slightly: the tip of the spear imbedded itself in the thin chest armor that his adversary wore.
He did not drive it forward. There was no reason to- -and he knew what it would cause if he tried. Despite his role, Zel knew the way the world worked and the way it was meant to- -and he knew what lines must never be crossed. He had won, if only symbolically. The Pegasus stood, staring at him, the spear, the trees, and the stones around them all at once. She did not move, because there was no need to.
Then Zel fell to his knees. The Pegasus reached out and grasped his mask. Then she tore it away. Zel immediately began to gasp and wheeze, feeling his lungs restricting from the subzero air that he was suddenly breathing. It was too thin, and he felt the world growing dim. He had won, but that thought brought him no comfort as he watched through his fading vision as the Pegasus picked up his spear.
Zel tried admirably to hold onto it, but he was already growing numb. The Pegasus managed to wrench it from his grasp. She turned it around and held the point over Zel’s neck. Then she raised it, preparing to bring it down. Zel sighed. He was already unable to feel terribly much on account of the numbness around him; his only regret was not being able to fight the Pegasus called Daring Do. He wondered if in another world- -another life- -she and him might have been friends.
The spear came down.
“NO!” cried a voice. The silence of the forest ended in an instant as the scream echoed through the trees and off the mountain. The point of the spear stopped an inch from Zel’s throat, and he turned. Through a gap in the trees, he was sure he could see Daring Do, her eyes wide with panic. The white Pegasus did not reply to her, but was staring at her, questioningly.
Panting, Daring Do shouted through the trees. “You can’t! You can’t do that! Not now, not ever! I won’t let you.”
The white Pegasus’s brow furrowed. Clearly she could not understand.
“Please,” said Daring Do.” White, put down the spear.”
White- -if that was truly her name- -did not oblige. At least not at first. Then, without any other warning, she threw the spear down onto Zel.
Zel, who was now convulsing from the cold, weakly grabbed her hoof. “P- -please!” he gasped. “Oxygen! For my wheeze! And I’d give all…all my gold…/if I wasn’t so…so cold!”
White stared at him for a moment, and then shook her head. It was the last thing Zel saw before he passed out completely.
Overhead, Rainbow Dash had reached her operational limit. The air was so thin, there was no possibility of breathing. She had held her breath for the last hundred fathoms, and slowly turned as she descended. Her opponent was low and rising at an oblique angle. He knew that Rainbow Dash would attack from above, and he was prepared.
Rainbow Dash pulled her wings close to her body and dove. Her speed accelerated rapidly, and she suddenly extended her wings, beating them as fast as she could, driving herself down even faster. The peaks of Lyskymm were looked tiny for a moment, but then seemed to grow vastly in a matter of seconds.
The armored pony rose to meet her. A blade flicked out from one of his hooves, and Rainbow Dash knew that neither of them would be turning back from this confrontation. Instead of changing course, she accelerated, driving harder and harder through the thin air, falling straight toward him at incredible speed.
The air in front of her began to compress, generating an intermediate luminous wake as Rainbow Dash pushed through. She assessed her speed and realized that what she was trying to do might not even be possible at this altitude. Even with that thought, she did not slow down even for a moment.
The Pegasus approaching her from the other side saw her diving at incredible speed, and he did not understand what was happening. The rainbow pony bore no weapons, and no armor; a direct collision with his armored body would be severe for both of them. His confusion only grew when he saw the air around her forming a polychromatic wake, flickering with numerous colors as she accelerated downward.
Her descent was too rapid. He knew that he had to win, and to do so immediately. Without remorse or hesitation, he raised one of his hooves and activated the firing system within his armor. A six-inch long steel spike exploded forth, targeted with exacting precision between Rainbow Dash’s eyes. Rainbow Dash did not have time to dodge.
Nor did she need to. The spike never reached her. When she was less than ten feet away from the armored pony and less than two inches away from the spike, she exceeded the speed of rainbows.
The entire forest below shook from the force of the blast, and the night’s sky was suddenly illuminated as bright as day by an expanding ripple of brilliant rainbows. The battle below stopped in its tracks. White stared up, her multiple mechanical retinas wide with awe as she perceived colors that most ponies could not even comprehend. Sweetie Drops nearly broke out in laughter at how ridiculous it was, and even Absence turned to look. Having left herself open and unguarded, she suddenly felt something wrap tightly around her rear leg and realized instantly that it was a whip.
The townsfolk, likewise, also saw the rainboom. They had been awoken by the commotion of the fight at the edge of town, and when they heard the explosion and saw the light, they trembled in fear- -but only for a moment. They did not understand what was happening, so they responded the way they always did when something occurred that they did not understand: they raced to their barns and sheds to retrieve pitchforks and torches.
High above, Rainbow Dash continued to rocket through the air, now leaving a complete and glowing rainbow behind her. She could not help but laugh- -but her mirth only lasted for a few seconds.
Below, she saw her opponent falling. His damaged thrusters flickered and trailed smoke, and as he spiraled downward one wing flapped uselessly while the other hung limp at an odd angle. It was only then that Rainbow Dash realized that they had drifted quite a distance away from the forest, and they were no longer over it. They were instead out farther, and had been flying beyond the sheer cliffs that dropped many miles onto jagged crags below.
On the ground, Absence’s eyes widened. “BROTHER!” she cried. With one swift motion she turned, driving her blade through the notch in Daring Do’s whip that White had already left. The blade hacked through and the whip snapped in half, freeing Absence. She soared into the air, but it was too late. She was too far. They were all too far.
Rainbow Dash arced downward, putting an incredibly amount of stress on her wings. They almost buckled under the force of taking a ninety degree turn at the speed of sound, and she left a trail of feathers that had been painfully plucked by the sheer force.
Then she shot downward, leaving a rainbow trail as she descended. The injured Questlord continued to fall, desperately trying to compensate for the fact that his now useless armor was weighing him down. He was dropping fast, but Rainbow Dash was diving faster. With another sharp turn, she passed him and swooped below him, catching him out of the air.
With her energy almost entirely depleted, the best Rainbow Dash could do was to ride her remaining inertia back upward. She passed by the cliff and over the dark forest just as the rainboom was beginning to fade and the night was yet again growing dark and cold. The Pegasus she held did not try to fight, and Rainbow Dash could not help but worry that she had badly addled him by exploding a Rainboom in his face. She had not seen the spike he had fired toward her, nor could she perceive his shame at having done so while she carried him to safety.
Absence met her on the ground. She had already sheathed her sword and she reached up, taking her brother from Rainbow Dash.
“Brother? Brother, how severe is it?”
The male Pegasus retracted his mask. “One broken wing. And internal damage. The suit is compensating.”
“We need to get you to mother- -”
“No.” He pulled away from her and stood. “My power-assist is still functioning. I can still fight.”
Absence looked up at Rainbow Dash. “You…you saved my brother.”
“Well, it kind of was my fault,” admitted Rainbow Dash. “And besides. I’m actually really heroic.”
A crossbow bolt suddenly whizzed toward Rainbow Dash’s head. Absence reacted instinctively, blocking it with the armor remaining on her left foreleg. Both of them turned suddenly to see an angry mob of short, stocky Pegasi and goats rushing through the streets with pitchforks and torches.
“WITCHES!” cried one of them. “Witches who make rainbows in the sky!”
“Rainbows! Evil rainbows!” agreed another.
“BAAAAHHHHHHH!” cried a goat.
“Rainbows are not evil!” shouted Rainbow Dash. “Sure, they don’t taste so good, but- -”
Another crossbow bolt whizzed by. This time, Rainbow Dash saw it coming and managed to roll out of the way. She nearly struck an extremely sweaty Sweetie Drops in the process.
“Bon Bon- -”
“Dash, if you refuse me this time I’m going to give you such a silver poke! Get Daring Do and get out of here! NOW!”
“But- -”
“White and I will cover you!”
“But- -”
“GO!”
Rainbow Dash nodded and accelerated. The armored Pegasus who had not been flying previously stood up, having managed to at least partially repair his hydraulics. With his armor stained with green fluid, he looked distinctly alien, especially as he bounded toward Rainbow Dash- -at least until Sweetie Drops leapt on his back.
Daring Do was not far. She was standing over Withers, who was largely immobile, desperately trying to reconnect the broken halves of his glasses. The remaining Pegasus was desperately trying to swing at Daring Do, even though her eyes were nearly swollen shut and she could barely see. Neither of those ponies were much of a threat, but the rapidly approaching mob certainly was.
“Darn it!” swore Rainbow Dash as she landed beside Daring Do.
“Rainbow!” cried Daring Do. “You have to get out of here!”
“Not without you!”
“LOOK!” cried one of the approaching Pegasi. “Rainbow mane on a rainbow mare! RAINBOW WITCH!”
“Are you freaking kidding me?!” shouted Rainbow Dash. She pulled back her mane. “LOOK! No horn! I’m a Pegasus! How can I be a witch without a horn?!”
The crowd stopped.
“She has a point!” screamed one of the ponies.
“BAAAHHHHH!” cried a goat.
“The goat is right!” replied another Pegasus loudly. “That IS exactly what a witch would say!”
They began advancing again. Daring Do raised her half of a whip, which although thoroughly useless was the only weapon she had. Rainbow Dash, however, had a sudden flash of inspiration.
She ducked down and rolled toward Withers, quickly shoving her hooves into the pockets of his jacket.
“Stop that,” he snapped. “It takes hours to organize those.”
“Sorry, I need to borrow this.” Rainbow Dash removed a large circular device from Withers’s coat.
Daring Do recognized what it was. “Holy- -how did you know he had that?!”
“Because he’s Withers! In every single book, he’s ALWAYS the guy who pulls out explosives!”
The crowd continued to advance, and Rainbow Dash lifted the object overhead. “Behold!” she cried. “The Great and Powerful RAINBOW DASH!”
She then threw the explosive on the ground, causing it to detonate into a plume of blinding white light and thick, acrid smoke. The crowd choked and gasped until the smoke cleared, only to find that the two Pegasi behind it had vanished.
Having confirmed that Rainbow Dash was, in fact, a rainbow-witch, the crowd dropped their weapons and ran away, terrified. Rainbow Dash and Daring Do would not have known this, of course, as they had already made their escape.
Or so they thought.