Rainbow Dash was on fire. Her first thought, waking up, was ‘why didn’t Raindrops wake me?’
Her second thought, as she focused on the mirrored goggles staring up at her, and saw the little hearts spiraling around in her own eyes, was ‘woah, I’m awesome!’ Of course, she already knew that, but wow.
She might have been lost in her own reflection for the duration, if she hadn’t been on fire. She thrashed and bucked her way out of the attacker’s grip, and dashed for the nearest cloud to put herself out. As she spun around to dry off after extinguishing the flames, flinging glistening droplets of moisture from her primary feathers, she finally got a good look at just who had attacked her. “Spitfire?”
Somepony slammed into the base of her tail like a bolt of lightning, complete with stinging sparks crawling over her damp fur and feathers. They tried to get hold of her by her flanks, but she shot out of their grasp before they could get a good grip. Looking over her shoulder, she recognized this pony too. “Soarin’? What gives?”
“This time, we get to save you,” Spitfire said. “We’re taking you in to break whatever spell that nasty little unicorn put on you.”
“Can you come back tomorrow? We’re busy,” Rainbow Dash said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw four more Wonderbolts scattering her weathermares, but she could worry about that later. “I’m missing some vital strategic naptime.”
“Miss this!” Soarin’ said, buzzing his wings like a hummingbird until he’d built up a good charge, then shooting towards her, crackling with electricity. Rainbow jinked out of the way, right into Spitfire’s spiraling fiery follow-up. A desperate four-hooved kick to the flaming pony’s face got Rainbow out of her aura before she could catch on fire again, and she used the push-off to start flying in earnest, her own rainbow trail stretching out behind her.
“If you’re trying to save me, you’re doing it wrong!” Rainbow shouted as she flung herself through what she thought would be a series of unpredictable random turns, but the two Wonderbolts stuck to her tail as if they were in formation.
“We were supposed to ask you to come peacefully,” Spitfire admitted, almost lazily advancing until she was right on Dash’s flank. “But we know you’d never go for that, so why not cut to the chase?” The flaming pegasus jerked to the side, trying to knock her out of the air, but Rainbow dodged it with a quick barrel roll that she turned into a mini-tornado, sending her two pursuers spinning around helplessly in the swirling wind until they shot out in completely the wrong direction.
Dash dove for the cloud cover. The two Wonderbolts swooped around to follow, and almost caught up to her before she could lose herself in the clouds – they were just close enough not to have any time to dodge as Rainbow Dash bounced off the surface instead, a faint chromatic ripple spreading from the point of impact. She spread her wings and knocked her pursuers aside like bowling pins. “Then let’s do this!” Rainbow Dash shouted gleefully as she soared into the sky. Spitfire and Soarin’ looked up from where they were sprawled out on the clouds, and grinned right back as they shot up after her.
===
“Whoa, nelly. That girl’s on fire!” Applejack remarked as she stood on a stormcloud, watching the three pegasi swirl around in the air, leaving trails of smoke, lightning-charged clouds, and rainbows behind them. “I mean, literally on fire. Is that safe?”
Shining Armor answered. “After Rainbow Dash and Mare-Do-Well’s ‘heroic’ showboating, we couldn’t convince the Wonderbolts to leave the monster-fighting to the professionals, so we let the Royal Armory modify their uniforms. Most of them wanted something flashy, but they’re civilians so they didn’t get anything lethal. A foxfire aura like that doesn’t burn very hot, but it’ll scare off a timber wolf or manticore.”
The Great and Powerful Trixie looked up, her horn glowing continuously as she maintained the stormcloud beneath them. The cloud-walking spell that let all of them ride the ominous craft was also hers, but it at least didn’t require constant upkeep. “We’d better hurry and fire the Elements of Harmony, before the Wonderbolts steal the show,” she said. “The Great and Powerful Trixie did not endure this morning’s abuse simply to watch as a group of entertainers took down Trixie’s mark!”
“Fluttershy, take us closer,” Shining Armor said to the pegasus pushing them, or possibly hiding behind the cloud. “We need to make sure we hit the right target.”
“I wonder,” Rarity said. “What is the range on the Elements of Harmony? We’ve always used them up close, but I don’t think it’s actually possible to dodge their effects. Perhaps we could just activate them from here?”
“We’re about half a mile off,” Shining Armor said. “What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from your target when you used the Elements?”
“’Bout thirty feet,” Applejack said.
“Fluttershy, take us closer.”
===
It wasn’t really possible, was it? Nopony was faster than Rainbow Dash! She’d let them catch up! But now she was giving it her all, and Spitfire and Soarin’ were not only not falling behind, but had enough extra speed to lunge at her and force her off course every time she tried to get lined up for a sonic rainboom. It was completely unfair! They got to use their weird elemental auras, but she wasn’t allowed to use her own signature move? All she needed was a few seconds, and she could end this fight like that.
So maybe it was time to do more than fly. The next time Spitfire tried to shove her off course, Rainbow set her shoulder and slammed it into the Wonderbolt’s chest, grabbed onto her mane with her teeth, and flung her over her back, right into Soarin’s face. That would buy her enough time to – oh Celestia why! The fire was in her mouth! As she gasped to scream, it flowed down into her lungs! She knew it wasn’t real fire – she hadn’t even been singed by her previous immolation – but it hurt worse than anything, ever. She had the time she’d thought she’d need to get up to rainboom speeds, while Spitfire and Soarin’ untangled themselves, but spent it coughing and shaking instead. It was all she could do to stay in the air.
But a few seconds without Spitfire herding her this way and that was enough time for her to reach the thunderstorm, even on shaky wings. She plunged into the dark, cold cloud and breathed in the soothing fog, extinguishing the fire in her lungs as she floated through the solid gray mass. She altered her course a bit, folded her wings, and snuggled into the cloud’s tight embrace, waiting and listening for signs of pursuit.
Wing-flaps passed close by her, but she wasn’t detected. The chilly mist did a good job of swallowing up sound – she heard nothing after that, except for her own labored breaths and the distant, panicked screams of her weathermares, still being hassled by those Wonderbolt bullies. Rainbow Dash smiled. That gave her a target.
A chorus of screams and cries for help flew past close by, and she burst out behind the weather team, tackling the Wonderbolt who’d been chasing them around in circles. It was Fleet Foot, more of a racer than a fighter. She gave a yelp of her own as Rainbow Dash lunged at her, and the air around her started to chill, but that didn’t stop Rainbow Dash from punching her in the face, sending her spiraling towards the ground, unconscious. Rainbow saw Fleet Foot’s rival, Rapidfire, break off from his own group to try to save her, and made sure to time her next charge so that she passed them just as he’d just gotten hold of the plummeting pegasus – using a pressure wave from her wake to body-slam them both into the trees.
As she circled back up, Cloudchaser and Flitter from her weather team were there to meet her. “They’ve got Raindrops!” Flitter cried, pointing past the edge of the storm, to where another Wonderbolt – it was hard to tell from this distance, but it looked like the rookie, Misty – was driving dozens of weathermares down into a clearing, where unicorns and earth ponies waited with nets.
“Not for long!” Rainbow Dash said, heading straight there. As she passed close to the storm, though, a white-winged Wonderbolt pulled a trick out of her own book, and leapt from the clouds to tackle her.
“Surprise!” the newcomer giggled as she bit down on Rainbow Dash’s wing, holding in her teeth and twisting it out of alignment, sending the two of them into a flat spin. The centrifugal force held Rainbow’s wing painfully oustretched, and Surprise away from her hooves. Spitfire and Soarin’ burst from the cloud wall right on Surprise’s tail, Soarin’ grabbing Rainbow’s other wing to hold her helpless for Spitfire’s assault. Technically, enough writhing and thrashing could have gotten Rainbow Dash loose, but it probably would have been minus at least one wing.
“Gotcha,” Spitfire said casually, with a friendly smile. She flared her wings, rising up above the trio, then dropped hooves-first onto Rainbow’s face like a ten ton rock.
===
“Rainbow!” Fluttershy cried, as she saw her friend go limp.
Applejack winced. “That’s gonna sting in the morning.”
Shining Armor watched for a few more seconds, as the Wonderbolts clamped hoofcuffs around Rainbow Dash’s ankles, and added similar restraints for her wings. “I guess we aren’t needed here after all,” he said, once she was securely bound. “It’s nice to see some pony in Equestria solve a problem with running to the Elements.”
“No!” Trixie cried. “It is not too late for us to assist! Elements, assemble!” Most of the elements were already assembled by default, being stuck on a small floating cloud, but Fluttershy fluttered up to take her place as Trixie posed dramatically. “Rainbow Dash! In the name of Trixie Lulamoon, the purifying light of the rainbow of harmony–“
“Uh, Trix?” Applejack said. “You don’t need any of that mumbo jumbo.”
“Oh, Let her have her moment, Applejack,” Rarity scolded.
“It’s too late,” Trixie said, pouting. “Trixie’s moment is entirely ruined.”
Cherry Berry giggled, putting a hoof to her mouth to try to stifle a laugh. Trixie tried to glower at her, but couldn’t hold the expression for long, a small hint of a smile sneaking through – and suddenly, her eyes went wide, and her body jerked as if jolted by lightning. Her mane and tail stood on end, her eyes turned into to glowing, pupil-less white, and she lifted slightly off the cloud, her purple-starred crown glowing brightly. The other Elements of Harmony glowed as well, their bearers closing their eyes and rising into the air…
“Wait for me!” Shining Armor cried, as the ponies around him were engulfed in the building aura. “Come on, work!” he said, trying to shove magic into the red lightning-bolt gem on the necklace he was wearing.
None of the others noticed anything but their own building energy – not Shining Armor’s struggle, not the thundercloud they’d been standing on dissipating beneath them as Trixie’s magic was diverted to another purpose. Even Shining Armor’s scream of terror as he plummeted towards the clouds below went unmarked by the other five as the light from their Elements flowed together into a… somewhat lopsided and discolored miniature rainbow, about the length of Trixie’s tail.
As the tiny rainbow of light – with stripes of purple, pink, yellow, green and turquiose – squirmed its way across the sky towards Rainbow Dash, the magic trance ended, and five unconscious ponies joined their would-be Element of Loyalty in his downward plummet.
Which was arrested suddenly by a set of dark, cloven hooves, and the sound of bat wings flapping.
“You!” Shining Armor said, turning his head slightly to see who’d caught him.
“We can fight later, Captain,” the night guard said. “You’ve got friends to save.”
Shining Armor, now that he was no longer falling to his death, noticed the plight of the other Elements of Harmony, and it was the work of seconds to construct a gently curving slide of purple force to catch them as they fell, and deposit them safely on a natural, pegasus-made cloud. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“Yes,” the night guard replied vehemently. “But instead I’m here, watching you fail.”
“Stalking us,” Shining Armor insisted. “Whose side are you on?”
The night guard calmly answered, “Luna’s, of course.”
===
Rainbow Dash woke up with a sneeze. Spitfire smirked as she pulled her wing-tip away from her prisoner’s nose. “Not bad, kid,” she said. “You gave us a run for our money.”
“Uh, thanks,” Rainbow said, struggling to free herself, or at least move, but she was tied up tighter than a baby dragon in a rodeo, and sore all over besides. “Best two out of three?”
All around her, in the mountainside clearing, other pegasi were tied up much less securely – most of them with a rope leash around their necks to stop them from just flying away, with earth pony and unicorn guards on hand to stop any pony who looked like they were trying to slip out of their bonds. Many of them were looking at her expectantly, with little pink hearts in their eyes, waiting for her to give the order for them to break free and… probably get themselves hurt. The actual Ponyville weather team, the ones she hadn’t had to charm, were easy to spot by their utter lack of hope.
The storm loomed overhead – dark, ominous, its bulk blotting out the sun – but even at a glance she could tell that it was nowhere near finished, let alone ‘calibrated’. Twilight was going to come down at midnight, and – and –
“Let me go!” Rainbow Dash shouted, gnawing on the chains holding her forelegs together. “You can’t do this!”
Spitfire took a step back. “Kid! Cool it before you hurt yourself!”
Rainbow Dash thrashed back and forth. “I can’t give up! Twilight needs me! We have to finish the storm!” There was a commotion as the charmed ponies started to struggle out of their own bonds, and the guards ran forwards to stop them. “You can’t do this, Spitfire! Lives are at stake!”
Spitfire shook her head. “Rainbow, you’re not– what the heck is that?” Rainbow Dash turned to follow the Wonderbolt’s gaze, and saw a tiny shining thing swim through the air towards her. Rainbow snapped at it as it got close, but it dodged her teeth and smacked her right in the eyes.
Everything went white – vision, hearing, even her sense of touch and smell, all whited out by the impact. Despite that, Rainbow Dash didn’t feel hurt, or scared – even the pain of her bruises and burns was gone, and all that was left was a sense of peace and calm. When her vision cleared, she felt better than she ever had in her life, every feather glistening with oil as if freshly preened, her coat clean and fluffy and waving in the mountain breeze, her mane untangled for the first time in ever. And she knew what she had to do – it was important to save Twilight, but she’d been going about it all wrong, sneaking around behind everypony’s back, leaving trouble and strife in her wake. Of course it had caught up to her, that sort of lame shortcut always would.
Speaking of which… she turned to see several dozen pairs of eyes looking in her direction. The formerly charmed pegasi she’d drafted for her emergency weather squad were free from Twilight’s spell, now, and from the looks of it, not all that happy with her.
“Was that rainbow from the Elements of Harmony?” asked one of the unicorns, an actual Royal Guard by his armor. “I kind of thought it’d be… bigger.”
Spitfire looked up at Rainbow Dash warily, and Rainbow noticed for the first time that she was free of her chains and hovering a dozen feet above the rocky ground. “Best two out of three, huh,” the Wonderbolt said, wings tensing to launch.
“Nah,” Rainbow Dash said, landing gracefully and folding her wings. “Let’s talk.”