The force of Rainbow Dash’s attack shook Canterlot Castle to its foundations.
Although the impact itself had been muted, occurring within the zone of Pinkie’s silence spell, the shockwave it sent out was in no way diminished. Both Twilight and Shining Armor strained to keep their shields raised, the latter nearly faltering before Princess Celestia added her magic to the mix. Even then, the ground bucked and jerked beneath their hooves, as though the mountain were trying to shake everyone off of it.
It was only after the quakes had died down that Twilight lowered her shield. “Rainbow D-Dash!” she coughed, flapping her wings to try and clear out the multicolored smoke still filling the area. “Are you alright?!”
“She’s gotta be,” wheezed Applejack, gripping her hat in her teeth as she tried to use it to fan the air clear. “She did that to my old barn before and came out cleaner than a new towel after laundry day.” But despite her assurances, nopony missed the worried tone in her voice.
Almost nopony. “I dunno,” hacked Spike. “That monster looks like it’s a lot tougher than a barn.”
“Aw, I bet she knocked it into next week!” cheered Pinkie, idly blowing up a few balloons before letting the air come sputtering out of them, pushing the colorful smoke away from her. “That way it won’t come back until Saturday morning, and I bet we’ll be able to finish it off in a half-hour when it does!”
“I have to say,” came Discord’s voice from deeper within the smoke, “I’m a really big fan of that idea.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than a heavy breeze swept through the area, pushing the smoke away in its entirety courtesy of an eight-foot tall folding fan hovering in midair, its surface decorated with a stylized image of Discord, which winked at everypony before he changed back to his usual self. Behind him, Shining Armor was leaning against Princess Celestia and Cadance, the latter murmuring another prayer to Lashtada, while Fluttershy nervously scanned the area, biting her lip at what she saw.
“Oh my…”
The conference room had been utterly obliterated. The ceiling was completely gone, as was the exterior wall, leaving the entire area fully exposed to the outdoors. The interior walls had fared no better, having been reduced to rubble in every direction, leaving not just the adjoining rooms totally in view, but the rooms beyond those, and even the rooms beyond those. Nor was that the full extent of the destruction; looking outside revealed that the courtyard was now occupied by a long row of thick debris that, upon a moment’s examination, could only have been one of the castle towers, having crumbled after its supports had been taken out in the blast, leaving Fluttershy gulping at the scope of the devastation.
In one blow, Rainbow Dash had destroyed an entire wing of the castle.
“Oh, I really hope Rarity and Princess Luna got everypony out in time,” she murmured, wincing at the thought of anyone having been caught in the blast radius.
“I’m sure they did.” Celestia’s voice was quiet but certain.
“I just hope that monster’s down for the count,” added Shining Armor with a groan. “I don’t know how many more of its attacks I can fend off.”
“My love will give you strength,” murmured Cadance, leaning down to nuzzle her husband.
The romantic sentiment earned a snort from Discord. “Oh please. Mounting a defense and playing medic are all well and good, but after an impressive entrance like that they’re not going to get either of you voted Most Valuable Pony.” A snap of his fingers made a pair of golden goblets – complete with wings and the letters “MVP” stamped on them – appear, their wings flapping as they flew over Cadance and Shining Armor’s heads before they suddenly disintegrated, causing Discord to smirk.
His comment earned a sharp glare from Celestia. “Perhaps you should consider helping before you criticize other ponies’ contributions, Discord.”
“Well I’m sorry, but that thing’s attacks hurt!” Discord’s expression was somewhere between incredulous and anxious. “I mean really, actually hurt! I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt pain, and I don’t know if you know this, but it’s not a good feeling! Who knows that thing might do if I use more chaos magic?!”
“Maybe it’ll be ready to talk now?” ventured Fluttershy hopefully. “I mean, now that…that…” Her head snapped around suddenly, eyes widening. “Oh no!”
Everyone around her immediately tensed. “What?!” asked Shining Armor, scrambling to his hooves. “What is it?!”
“The portal!” Fluttershy pointed at what had once been the side door into the conference room, where Discord had opened a second gateway to Everglow after the lhaksharut had forcibly closed the first one he’d made. But the doorframe, as well as the wall it had been set in, was completely gone now, as was the dimensional opening that it had previously held. “I think Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon and their friends were still on the other side of it!”
“Those two fillies that Twilight was looking for?” Princess Celestia bit her lip for a moment, then shook off her hesitation. “Discord, can you make another one?”
The question made the draconequus wince. “How about we table that idea until we’re sure its safe?” he asked, turning into a table that was immediately shut inside a thick metal safe.
“Discord, please!” Fluttershy rapped on the strongbox. “Applejack still feels terrible about losing those two, and Pinkie Pie worked so hard to try and bring them back! We can’t lose them again now!”
But no answer came from within the coffer.
“We’ll figure something else out later,” sighed Celestia when it became clear that Discord wasn’t going to come out. “Right now, we need to focus on doing what we can here. Once things have settled down, then we’ll work on getting those two back.” She didn’t say anything else, but the rest of the sentiment hung in the air, obvious to everyone.
For the time being, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were once again lost on Everglow.
Meanwhile, Twilight, Spike, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie had more immediate concerns.
“Rainbow!”
With the smoke cleared, their pegasus friend was plainly visible, wings flapping slowly as she hovered in the air where the lhaksharut had been moments before, a cocksure smile on her face. She’d apparently flown into the thing with her hind legs, as her forelegs were holding a collection of trinkets, wadded up in a mass that she kept pressed against her chest. Still smirking, she glanced at her friends and started to say something…or at least tried to, her lips moving as no sound came out.
“Ooh, I’ll fix that!” volunteered Pinkie, chirping an arcane word a second later. “There! Silence spell gone!”
“-sssaaavvveee ttthhheee dddaaayyy ooorrr wwwhhhaaattt?” finished Rainbow Dash, causing her friends to collectively blink in surprise, as did Rainbow herself as she heard her voice.
Spike was the first to recover. “Um, is it just me or does Rainbow Dash sound like she’s talking in super slow-mo?”
“The lhaksharut must have used some sort of slow-time spell on her.” Twilight couldn’t suppress a shudder from going down her spine, and not just from the idea that the thing might have survived Rainbow’s attack. The creature seemed to have countermeasures in place for almost everything, shrugging off magical attacks like raindrops, repairing itself whenever they managed to hurt it, closing down dimensional portals as they were opened, and now being able to slow down their fastest fighter. If it had managed to slow Rainbow down before she made contact with it, she would have been a sitting duck.
But Pinkie didn’t seem to be anywhere near as concerned as Twilight, bouncing up and down gleefully. “Do you think I should use that speedy spell I cast on you guys on her too? Or maybe I could whip up a batch of my super-extra-triple-chocolate-marshmallow-fudge cookies? Those always give me a rush when I’m feeling run down!”
“Maybe let’s go with that first one, sugarcube,” chuckled Applejack. “Even if it is kinda nice havin’ her go slow enough that the rest of us can outpace her for a change.”
Rainbow’s wings gave another slow flap as she glared at Applejack. “Ttthhhaaattt’sss nnnooottt fffuuunnnnnnyyy!!!”
Pinkie seemed to disagree, giggling even as she held out a hoof. “Okey-dokey-lokey!”
A few seconds later Rainbow Dash was back to her normal self, wearing a relieved grin. “Whew! Thanks for that Pinkie! Glad to see you’re back and better than ever!”
“You know it!” Pinkie’s answer came with a beaming smile and a hug that left Rainbow Dash struggling to keep her ribs from collapsing. “Everglow was a lot of fun, but I really missed you guys! As soon as we get back to Sugarcube Corner I’m going to throw the biggest welcome home party ever!”
“We might need to wait a little bit before we can start celebrating.” Unlike the rest of her friends, Twilight’s face was still tight with worry. “I don’t think we’ve won just yet.”
“Are you kidding me?” scoffed Rainbow, managing to extricate herself from Pinkie's embrace. “I hit that thing dead-center with a Sonic Rainboom! There’s no way it’s getting back up again!” Grinning, she couldn’t help but preen at her one-hit victory. “I was just too awesome for it!” A moment later it occurred to her to ask, “So, um, what was that thing, anyway?”
“I’ll explain while we get ready,” replied Twilight, before nodding at the collection of stuff that Rainbow was still clutching. “Is that our gear?”
“Yep!” Landing at last, Rainbow dumped the assorted baubles onto the ground. “These are all the magical knickknacks we picked up on Everglow. Belts, cloaks, rings, you name it.”
Applejack gave a low whistle. “I gotta admit, Dash, I’m impressed. You got my stuff from Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight’s from her castle, and yours from your place, and still got here as fast as you did? Even for you, that’s fast.”
“Aw, it was nothing.” Despite her words, Rainbow puffed up like a balloon at the compliment. “Honestly, the hard part was getting all of my things. Unlike you and Twilight, I sort of left them in a heap instead of organizing them all in one place.” Her smile fell away then, giving Twilight a concerned look. “But that reminds me. Twilight, something happened at your castle! I was in the basement getting your stuff together, and you won’t believe what I saw! That portal you made so you can go to that world where Sunset Shimmer lives was smashed to pieces!”
Twilight had already started levitating everything in the pile when she heard that, freezing in place as everything she’d telekinetically grabbed likewise hovered in midair. “What?!”
“I know!” Huffing, Rainbow gave the others a look of righteous indignation. “After we’re done here, we need to track down whoever did that and make them apologize!”
“Hmm…” Pinkie put a hoof to her chin, frowning deeply. “Now who do we know that goes around breaking portals to other worlds?” Pausing for just a moment, she eventually shrugged. “Eh, could be anypony.”
“No offense, sugarcube, but maybe leave the mysteries to Twilight and Rarity,” snickered Applejack.
“We’ll worry about the mirror later,” declared Twilight, having recovered from her shock. “For now, we need to gear up in case that thing’s not dead. Let’s fill Rainbow Dash in while we do.”
The next several seconds were filled with quick chatter as the girls rushed to tell Rainbow what had happened (with Spike doing his best to help) while putting on their magic items. By the time they were finished, Rainbow could only huff. “So in other words, this is all Discord’s fault. Again.”
“It’s not really his fault,” noted Spike. “I mean, it’s not like he knew some crazy statue-monster would show up just because he made a portal to that other world.”
“Even so-” But Rainbow didn’t have a chance to finish, as a low rumble shook the castle again. But unlike her Rainboom, this one was much more localized…as though something were digging its way up through the rubble.
“Get ready, girls,” cautioned Twilight. “I think round two is about to start!”