Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS


Demons VI

Down in the housing blocks mass panic had broken out when the lights went out and it had only gotten worse once ponies began to realize that the heating and air had been shut off too. Night Reader and Brilliant Star were fortunate enough to have one of their neighbors be a unicorn who knew how to make a flashlight out of his horn. He led them and a number of others on their row safely down the stairs where everyone could talk in the middle without worrying about hitting anything. At that point though, with no one who really knew what was going on and no pony in a leadership position, it started to devolve into chaos.

There were too few lights, things were getting cold, and they could all hear panic from the next housing block over. It wouldn’t be long before things really got bad and they were already going through their oxygen quicker than they should thanks to this chaos.

“Do you think Rainbow Dash has something to do with this?” Brilliant Star whispered to her husband.

“I think that’s a very strong possibility,” he answered while being jostled by some other ponies around them.

One of the ponies in the crowd tried shouting over the others. “So what do we do now? Can we get into the work area?”

“The hallway looks totally dark, there’s no way it’s open!” Another answered.

“What about the way to the upper levels?!”

“Why would that be open back up?”

And so it kept going, arguing and panicked shouting back and forth as they tried to think of a solution. Things were deteriorating quickly in here and it was starting to make Brilliant Star, Night Reader, and quite a few others scared. The floors had become so cold beneath their hooves too and despite the body heat of everyone else in here the temperature was just going lower and lower.

A new sound soon broke over their petty arguing, lots of voices were coming from the door that led to the entertainment section and promenade. The regular ponies of the housing block all gathered together in fear at what might be coming. Was it the security force? What was happening?

But instead out of the doors spilled a ton of ponies they all recognized well; gang leaders and members who Rainbow Dash had been on an endeavor against to get them to stop being so awful to themselves and others. From what most of the civilian ponies here knew she had succeeded since they hadn’t heard or seen as much of these guys in the past couple of days. That still didn’t mean they weren’t apprehensive about them all being here while the rest of this disaster went on.

“What’s going on?” Night Reader managed to ask. “You all just came down from the promenade didn’t you, do you know what’s happening?”

“Nothing good,” Double Duty growled, sounding a lot more confrontational than he probably wanted to.

Since that just worried the other ponies more, Nut stepped forward. “This is going to sound really bad—and in truth it is—but we’ve gotta stay calm too.”

She and the others waited for the ponies in the housing block to calm down before she continued. “What’s happened is this: Rainbow Dash, the pony from outside who recently came here for those of you who don’t know, went up to the upper levels to find and talk to Resin.” She paused and bit her lip since none of them knew for sure what had happened up there. “We don’t think it went too well and we aren’t sure what happened to Rainbow Dash. But we’re all sure after talking about it that Resin has completely turned off the power to the lower levels of the city.”

“Then what do we do?” Brilliant Star asked. “If there’s no power for the heating or the ventilation system...”

“We know,” Frayed Wire held up a hoof. “We’re all well aware of what’s going to happen if the power doesn’t come back or that door doesn’t get opened up.”

“For now we wanted to come back here and gather everyone together and take you all up to the promenade so we can be by the door in case it opens,” Acid Rain said.

“Every pony in the housing blocks,” Nut nodded.

That was good to hear but it simultaneously worried a lot of the ponies here too. There were a lot of them and it would take time to get everyone up to the barrier that led to the upper levels. And for something that might never even happen. The energy it would take, while the air got more stale and the temperature dropped, they wouldn’t be in good condition by the end of it.

“All of you can go to the promenade now while we round up the others. Let’s do this as fast as we can,” Double Duty told them.

There wasn’t much disagreement. It did take quite a long time but while the civilian ponies traveled into the entertainment area and up the stairs the gang ponies went throughout the other housing blocks to gather and notify everyone else, including their other gang members. Ponies like Cast Iron and Soot Mane joined up with their leaders and eventually all of the myriad ponies who lived down in these lower levels were brought together and went to ascend to the door that for now was their only hope. With everyone together as well they could start discussing alternative plans and possibilities. After all with this group they had full knowledge of the lower levels. Every last nook and cranny was well known if they put their minds together.

“What about the outer hatches? Why don’t we just go outside?” Soot Mane asked the others.

Frayed Wire shook his head. “They wont open without power.”

“What do you mean they wont open without power? Isn’t there a manual override?” Soot Mane was getting frustrated.

“The outer hatches are specifically designed to not open without power,” Nut explained.

“Who’s the idiot that came up with that design...” Acid Rain sighed and sat down, shaking his head.

“It’s not like it would really do us any good, most of us at least,” Double Duty said. “There’s no food out there, it’s freezing, and only the pegasi would actually be able to get down from the mountain in the first place. At best getting out of the city through the bottom hatches would just delay the inevitable. We need this door to get opened or for the power to come back on.”

Night Reader and Brilliant Star were sitting by the arguing gang leaders and heard everything. Their eyes were now affixed to the door as they thought about Rainbow Dash and wished her well. Soon down here a lot of the unicorns who had been straining themselves would run out of energy and have to turn off their light spells. Others might step up, others might start to rotate, but it was going to get darker among the horde of ponies stuck here too. Colder, darker, and eventually suffocating, that was the near future for these ponies if something wasn’t done.


Stamper the security officer was slammed into the wall and held there by the angry blue pegasus while his team lied unconscious on the ground behind her.

“Where’s Crush?!” Rainbow Dash yelled in his face.

“I-I don’t know!” The scared security officer, who already had one black eye, shook his head. “He’s just somewhere above us going through the jettison procedure, a number of sections have probably already been launched off the city! He’s the only one who can actually jettison the sections so he’s probably carefully going top to bottom while they’re all prepared.”

“Thanks,” Rainbow Dash said and socked him in the jaw, knocking him out.

She was already a decent way back up the higher levels and that was the first group of security ponies she had come across. If he was telling the truth then Crush should be up higher. She needed to really search out through the levels now though, if she came across a jettisoned section it likely meant she had gone too far. But more than doing it carefully she had to do it fast. Already the city was being irreparably changed and there were ponies whose lives were at stake.

Rainbow Dash zoomed through the corridors at full speed even though she had been tired since earlier after dealing with the Crocodile and all the little spider and crab metal monsters. It didn’t matter, she didn’t intend on fighting anybody else in here for now. She could easily fly past and avoid any of the amateur, up-jumped security guards on her way to Crush. And… hopefully she didn’t need to fight him either. Rainbow Dash was pretty sure she wouldn’t have to, he was reasonable, just apathetic. He knew what Resin was doing was wrong but still followed her out of obligation and guilt but after talking to him Rainbow Dash was sure that even he wouldn’t go along with what she was doing if he knew the whole story.

She bit her lip. She couldn’t have told them everything, they wouldn’t be obeying her if they knew the ponies down below were dying. Would they?

Rainbow Dash shook her head. Crush would listen to her, he had to.

When she went a level higher she actually did end up flying past another patrol. They shouted for her but she just ignored them, Resin had probably given them orders to capture her too if they could. Futile orders.

“Tch,” Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue after going around another level and seeing nothing but ponies being herded to interior sections. “I’m going to ask the next group of security ponies if they’ve seen Crush...”

She flew up the nearest flight of stairs and found herself in an argument. In one of the sections that was to be jettisoned a number of ponies were refusing to go along with the security team and get out of there. It looked like it was just some old empty storage section with a dim light in the ceiling and some vents going in and out of it but for whatever reason the ponies in there didn’t want it jettisoned. They were near to fighting with the security ponies so Rainbow Dash flew down and figured she might as well help resolve things in a peaceful manner.

“Hey!” She shouted and landed on top of one of the security officers, pancaking him to the floor while the others jumped in fright at her appearance. “Why don’t you pick on someone else?”

“You’re that outsider we’re supposed to watch out for!” One of them said, there were three others besides the one Rainbow had landed on.

Rainbow Dash snorted and rolled her eyes after stepping off the pony. “What was your first clue? Now I’m gonna give you guys a choice. Either leave these ponies alone and tell me where Crush should be right now or I’m gonna show you how useless that body armor you’re wearing is.”

“No need,” a voice from behind said.

Rainbow Dash turned around right as a red band of magic wrapped itself around her wings, keeping them pinned to her midsection and then dragging her body to the floor.

“Ngh!” She grunted as she was slammed down onto the cold metal and looked up to see Crush walking up to her with his horn alight.

“Found you first. Guess you’ve been causing even more problems since you ran away from Resin,” Crush said. He then looked over at the ponies who had been refusing to leave the section. “Get out and go home.”

They didn’t dare question or fight back against him. With nary a glance to Rainbow Dash the ponies she had been trying to help ran off. Crush watched until they had turned the corner to the stairs before addressing his officers.

“Now the four of you—help that idiot on the floor first—get out your cuffs and restraints and tie this one up,” he nodded at Dash.

“No! Crush, listen to me right now!” Rainbow Dash yelled but had to stop as the band of magic tightened around her body, making her wince in pain.

“I’ve had enough of you, especially with everything else I have to do today,” Crush scowled and walked over to a panel on the wall that was by the section everyone else had been standing in. He pulled a key out from one of his pockets and opened it up while his team grabbed Rainbow Dash and carried her to the floor just right past the perimeter of the nonessential section. The four, including the one helped by his friends, pulled out hoof cuffs and wires from their uniforms that they wrapped around Rainbow’s hooves and wings to keep her restrained. Ending with her bound tight enough to keep her from standing up or walking.

“Crush, you don’t understand!” Rainbow protested. “You don’t know what Resin’s doing!”

“I’m well aware of her plans, why do you think I’m doing this?” He said as he lifted a hoof to hit button number 1 and bring down the bars.

“She’s killing everyone down below!”

Crush stopped right before he touched the button. He, and the others too, looked at Rainbow Dash with surprised and confused expressions. “What are you talking about?”

“She didn’t tell you, did she? She’s not just having you get rid of all these extra parts of the city, she turned off all the power to the lower levels! Everyone down there is going to freeze or suffocate now! You have to believe me! Untie me, tell me what you changed the code to so I can go and save them right now!” She pleaded.

The other security officers were worried but they looked to Crush for answers, waiting for him to make a decision. None of them had the courage to say anything or make a suggestion themselves.

“That’s… that doesn’t make any sense. Resin, even she wouldn’t do something like that,” Crush shook his head although Rainbow Dash could see the doubt and fear in his eyes.

“Yes she would, Crush! You know what’s happened to her, you know she would!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

Crush hesitated. “I… we’ll go and ask her. I’ll take you with me and we can talk to her together!”

Rainbow Dash banged her head against the floor in frustration. “No, Crush, there’s no time! I’m telling you the truth now-”

In the middle of her sentence the grating on a vent inside the soon to be jettisoned section was knocked off. All of the ponies looked over to it in surprise as a pink hoof came out of the vent that was barely big enough for a pony to fit in. The hoof grasped the edge and a pony pulled themselves out of the vent and landed on the floor. She quickly dusted herself off and shook her white mane before looking up with a smile in the direction of the others standing just outside the room.

Heartless’s eyes landed directly on Rainbow Dash and her smile grew while her blue eyes twinkled. “Found you.”