//------------------------------// // Chapter 4- A Friend In The Gray? // Story: The Rainbow in The Grime // by Glitternight //------------------------------// Chapter 4 Rainbow Dash awoke the next morning to the zoom of a hundred metal capsules echoing over her head. She sat beneath the highway, the first bursts of sunlight glaring directly in her eyes. Everything hurt. Her legs ached from the running and her left wing throbbed painfully against her back, swollen and purple. She was hoping she would awake in Ponyville, away from the terrible world she had mistaken at first as an adventure. But no, she was here, bruised belly and all; it was more real than anything that had ever happened to her in her life. She snorted at the thought—two days ago, she had wanted something real. And now, the life she once had was a fantasy she could only wish to return to. She groaned as she rose to her aching hooves again, her knees creaking as they unbent. Her stomach growled beneath the now dark green bruises. She hadn’t eaten since awakening in this strange world. She wondered. She looked around before venturing out of the cover of the overpass. Keep your head, Rainbow. You can’t just prance out in broad daylight. The wild eyes of the man who had beaten her, the one called Steve, stained her memory with a brutal vividness. When she saw no one lurking about, she ducked through a large open wired gate to her left, into an alley that provided some shade and cover from the surrounding buildings. Come on, I need to find something to eat. Anything. She sniffed the air for anything that might smell edible through the bitter smell of the city. She stopped in her tracks at a familiar scent—that of ripe fruit. It came from a dumpster nearby, and her stomach growled once more at the first whiff. She approached the massive metal box once more, jumping as high as her legs could take her in this condition, but still a foot too short. She began flapping her right wing painfully and frantically, begging for a few more inches of height, until she managed to get high enough to grab the edge with her teeth and swing a hoof over the side. She flipped herself into the dumpster, and found herself in the same position she was yesterday: in a pile of sacks of garbage. She bit through one of them and the smelly trash spilled out of the stretchy hole in the plastic. She prodded through it with her nose until she found an apple core. With a pang of remembrance of Applejack, and the fight they had right before she appeared here, she gobbled it, seeds and all. She again started digging lightly with her swollen muzzle until finding a loaf of bread, half of which was green. Now is not the time to be picky, she thought to herself as her nose crumpled at the sight of it. She nibbled on whichever parts she could find without mold before lying on one of the soft bags, shivering. There were no trees in sight so she couldn’t tell for sure, but it felt like autumn was setting in by the chilly breeze around her. Rainbow Dash still had no idea how she even ended up in this world in the first place. She didn’t have a horn or anything, and unless some pony who could do magic transported her here, there was no explanation for the sudden change in dimensions. She snuggled against the cold plastic, desperate for protection from the relentless wind, when she heard footsteps approaching. In a moment of panic, Rainbow made herself as small as could be, ducking low away from the edge. She waited for the footsteps to fade away, but instead, they came closer and louder. And they were accompanied with a voice. It was panicked and frenzied and even fuller of fear than Rainbow Dash was. “Stop!” A female screamed as someone was thrown against the dumpster, the metal shook and echoed with the slam, and Rainbow jumped up before reluctantly peeking over the edge. She saw two of the creatures. One was a tall female with curly black hair and brown eyes wide with fear, curled against the foot of the dumpster she was just shoved against. The other was a pale muscular male, his mouth curled in a malevolent grin. “Please…” the female whimpered, lifting a brown purse as if it were a shield. “Take the money. Take whatever the hell you want. Just stop this; I won’t tell anyone! I won’t—” “Shut up, bitch!” Rainbow flinched as the male slapped the shaking girl in the face, the noise echoing between the walls of the alley. The girl fell silent and shaking as he bent over her, shoving her face in the ground and pulling up her skirt. She kicked her legs, fighting and flailing uselessly beneath his body weight. Rainbow Dash knew what she had to do. Don’t do it, she told herself in vain. Just mind your business. You don’t have to help any of these things. But of course, she couldn’t just do nothing; it wasn’t in her nature. In a feat of sudden strength, probably induced with protective instinct, Rainbow Dash leaped over the edge of the dumpster, and ran into the fight. “Hey!” she shouted to the man, and the moment he turned, she delivered a swift kick to his face. He fell to the floor, unconscious as a rock. The girl stared at Rainbow in shock, mascara rolling off her lashes, probably wondering if she should be happy, or just more afraid of the Pegasus before her. “Well, what are you waiting for?” Rainbow shouted to the girl impatiently, shaking her colorful mane out of her eyes. “Get going, will ya?!” The girl nodded, her eyes still open wide, and rose to her feet to run off with the clip-clop of high heals. “You’re welcome!” Rainbow shouted as the girl turned the corner of the alley. The pony muttered, “Of all the ungrateful little…” BAM. A foot connected with Rainbow’s rump as she fell forward, realizing too late that the man had awoken. “Who the fuck do you think are?” he shouted as she rose to her feet. “Or… well, what are you anyways?” he added in a mutter. His foot narrowly missed her face as she ran got up and dodged quickly on her limping feet. She decided to take her own advice and run, but when she got to the end of the alley, the gate was closed. “Oh come on!” She shouted in frustration. “I give you a chance to get away and you lock me in with him! Are you kidding—” She was cut off with a kick to her head, and she slid to the ground, her vision swimming. She was seeing doubles, triples of his form. She made out his foot swinging back and braced herself for another kick, when the gate suddenly burst open. “STOP RIGHT THERE!” The voice Rainbow heard was familiar, but she didn’t recall from where. “If you fucking hurt her, you’re going to regret it!” She barely made out a figure leap over her and onto her attacker, punching him repeatedly in the face. Then, everything faded to black. ____________________________________ When Rainbow awoke, before she opened her eyes, she smelled something sweet in the air, much like apple pie. Her lips watered as she thought of the baked goods at Sweet Apple Acres. A glorious thought came to her; perhaps she was back home. She opened her eyes in a hurry. What she saw before her was much more disappointing. She was in the cage. A metal cage, perhaps the size for a large dog. She could feel a bump on her head where the man had kicked her. Great, she thought. Another injury. Just what I needed. She looked around for the source of the deceptive scent and saw a box before her labeled “Pop Tarts” with an image of a flat pastry of some sort. The pastry itself was in a bowl before her and she realized the scent came from whatever the hay it was. She smelled it suspiciously, and it did seem edible, so she nibbled on it lightly. It actually tasted quite good, but it was hot. “Ow!” she yelled and jumped a little as she burnt her tongue, and her head hit the top of the cage, directly with her bump. “Ow!” she shouted again, rubbing her head with a hoof. “Careful.” The familiar voice spoke again from a corner of the dark room. “It’s hot. It just came out of the toaster. And I’m sorry about the cage, but you can’t just run around with Animal Control after you. And after seeing the headache you gave that guy, well, I just didn’t want you to panic and mess me up too. I really thought I was tripping when I saw you before, but then I saw the news, and well…” He sighed before approaching her cage, and Rainbow’s magenta eyes went wide with a sudden recognition. “I’m so sorry, Rainbow Dash. I should have helped you before when I had the chance,” Jerry said, as he looked at her with amazement in his blue eyes. “And,” he added as she shook her head and backed away in the cage, “Welcome to my home.”