//------------------------------// // A Dream House // Story: Fuel the Eternal Flame | A DOOM MLP Crossover // by NotAnEditor //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash’s Cloudominium stood proudly in the air, the several rainbows leaping and bouncing between the buildings to give it an added flair. It was truly a lavish home, just gnarly enough for it’s inhabitant. The stone halls of the home were currently appreciating the momentary rest from the cyan pegasus’ shenanigans. She was off working her cloud patrol gig for the day. However, the time spent away from her couldn’t be too long. Rainbow’s Wonderbolt practice had been canceled today thanks to some strange occurrence in the sky city.  Still, the house settled peacefully while it could. The clouds drifting steadily, the foundations and fancy stone walls enjoying their still positions… BANG! The front doors crashed straight through, the home’s owner rushing in on wings. “HA! I knew I could beat you!” Rainbow Dash boasted, crossing her arms as she levitated lightly in the air, speaking to somepony outside. Twilight Sparkle scoffed as she flapped over to the front doors. “I wasn’t trying to beat you, Rainbow Dash.” She stated, hovering over the cloudy front lawn. “Oh, come on! Have some competition in your life, Twi!” Her pegasus friend responded. The alicorn sighed, slowly making her way onto the floor of her friend’s home, planting her hooves down and folding her wings. “I’m not a competitive type of pony.” She reminded.  Rainbow Dash joined her friend on the ground, standing up on her hind legs and leaning casually on a tiny table in the main hallway of her home. “Competitive, shomshemimive.” She replied, flopping a hoof down dismissively. “So, why are you here again?” The princess had informed her earlier as they raced, but of course the pegasus was too focused on the ‘competition.’ Twilight rolled her eyes before beginning to explain. “Spike and I just got a new shipment of old books from the Canterlot library.” The alicorn began. “Though, the actual library room is filled to the brim with the books we have now, so me and Spike were thinking we could set up some spare bookshe-” “Boring!” Rainbow Dash complained, getting off the small panel end table. The alicorn groaned. “Come on, Rainbow! I helped you with taking care of Tank while you were at Wonderbolt training!” “And I’m still stressed out from that whole month! I have training off all week, so if you want me to help another time then sure.” She shrugged. “But I need a day or two off, Twi. It’s like 6pm anyways.” Rainbow turned, walking deeper into her house. “So, could you help another time this week?” The purple pony asked. Rainbow Dash made her way into her large living room, plenty of space for an active pegasus like her to fly about casually. There were several comfy chairs and sofas surrounding a mostly unused fireplace. She flopped onto the usual couch, the one who’s cushioning was made from cloud fluff. It puffed with her landing.  “Sure. Tomorrow, maybe.” She elevated her voice for the mare to hear, writhing on the couch, attempting to find the ‘sweet spot’ to lay on. Twilight smiled. “Good, thanks Rainbow!” She said, turning and flying out of her friend’s home, the double doors lighting with magic and being closed. “Finally.” Rainbow Dash slouched further into the couch, reaching over to a table next to it and taking up the latest adventures of Daring Do. “Time for some good old R and R.” She basked in her relaxation, a small grin forming as she began reading the novel. ‘“I’ll never give away the location of the Baalgar piece! It’s too dangerous in the hands of ponies like you!” Daring Do shouted at Dr. Caballeron, struggling on the vines entangling her limbs to the wall. “You could harm thousands!” Caballeron laughed hardily. “Perhaps that is what I want?” He stated. “The world at my hoovetips, nothing to stop me!” The stallion leaned closer in on the adventuring mare. “A world without you.” The earth pony started to a nearby lever, lifting a hoof to it. ‘“We both know how this goes, Caballeron.” She began, glaring at him. “You’ll be sent to the local dungeon like the last twelve other times.”’ ‘Dr. Caballeron laughed. “Well, you know what they say! Twelveth’s time the charm.” He pulled the lever swiftly, Daring Do feeling the ground below her qu-’ Her reading was cut off by the sight of a glowing red dot out of the corner of her eye. Rainbow slowly moved her head towards the odd light, shining on the marble floor of her living room. She gave it a confused look. “What in Celestia?” She looked up at the glass ceiling of the room, then back down at the dot. It seemed to have been shining in through there. She witnessed as the dot steadily grew larger, as if the source of it was slowly getting closer to her home. With a curious look, Rainbow Dash flew over to the dot, letting the book rest on her couch. She curiously put a hoof in front of it, watching as it blocked a good amount of the dot’s ray, the red landing on her cyan hoof. “Huh, weird.” The pegasus commented, waving the hoof back and forth over the dot to see what’d happen. She left it on her hoof, giving it a strange look before shrugging and walking off. The mare had to relax today, worrying herself over some stupid dot is the last thing she has on her priorities. Rainbow made her way back to the sofa, jumping into the air and landing right into a comfortable position. She shimmied her way deeper into the couch, looking up at the ceiling in a critical fashion. What to do… What to do… Rainbow thought to herself, forgetting the Daring Do book thanks to the momentary distraction. After a while of her staring at the ceiling, she sighed. “Looks like I gotta bring in the big guns.” She rolled off the couch, wrapping a hoof around a handle for one of the coffee table drawers. The pegasus pulled the drawer open, reaching a hoof in and bringing out a little notepad within. ‘Things for the Rainbow Dash to do (when bored)’ the top of the page read, a list below it. The first option read: ‘Fly around.’ Rainbow scoffed. “Already did that!” The second option read: ‘Hang with friends.’ “Everyone’s busy.” She told no one. “I’m not going to model for another one of Rarity’s dresses!” She rolled her eyes. The last one caught her eye. “Hang with Scootaloo? Hm… Why not!” She hopped off her bed, dropping the notepad on the table. She hadn’t spoken to Scootaloo in a good week or two. The pegasus took flight, preparing to live up to her namesake and dash out of her home, however once more the dot had caught her attention.  The dot had now grown to a full circle planted right in the middle of her living room. Rainbow let herself lower to the ground, going over to it. She raised her head up once she got to the red circle, squinting to the sky to see what the source of it could be. There, high above in the clouds was a metallic sphere, progressively arriving closer and closer to the earth. It hurdled, fire surrounding it due to the recent breaking of the world’s atmosphere, heading straight for her home. Rainbow Dash’s curious violet eyes widened into terror as the sound of the rocketing object filled her acute ears. “BY CELESTIA!” She shouted, rushing out of her living room in fear. The rocketing noise grew louder as she flew swiftly out of her home’s front door, the sphere striking down straight through the side of her home. The pegasus rushed out, flapping her away to a safe distance before turning to her home. The mare watched the object, the size of a decently shaped boulder, crash through and demolish half of her home. Her eyes remained wide as the sphere crumbled dozens of structures, walls, and rooms, attempting to find it’s way down closer to the source of gravity. The sounds of destruction filled her ears as it continued, digging through the thick, cloudy ground of her house. A distraught look formed on her face at the sight of the demolition of her home, the asteroid-like object falling to Equestria’s earth, skidding onto the ground and digging into the land’s dirt with extreme impact. The remaining portion of her house had trouble standing, the rainbow falls that used to fly between pools were now broken and disheveled, pouring off the remaining scorched cloud like blood from a perished animal. It was practically unlivable. As she looked on, the first thing that crossed her mind was her pet, Tank. “Tank!” She shouted, rushing over to her house. Rainbow swooped to the top room of the demolished home, her bedroom. Where Tank usually was. “Tank?!” She shouted as she rushed around, over her fluffy bed, under the drawers, between the nightstand. “Tank!” Half of the room had been removed by the strike. “Ta-Oh! Tank!” She spotted the tortoise on his usual bed, hiding within his shell, teetering just off the edge of the destroyed floor. “Thank Celestia you’re okay!” Rainbow picked him up in her front legs, holding the shell tightly. Despite being in the arms of his beloved owner, he still remained in his shell, Tank not wanting to take his chances any further. “I thought you’d be a goner!” She exclaimed, gently flying down to the grass below the Cloudominium. Thankfully, all that was below Rainbow’s home were rolling fields, mountains and the odd tree or two. It had a pretty good distance from Ponyville, so it’d seem that whatever had crashed into her house wouldn’t have harmed anypony else.  The mare gently set the tortoise down in the field. “Just, you stay here, ya got that? I need to check out whatever ruined our house.” She informed, turning to the large trail that carved through the Equestrian terrain, the object digging it’s way pretty far away thanks to its own momentum. The surrounding grass was heavily scorched by the object’s atmosphere induced flames, some small fires dying out on the surrounding plants. Rainbow Dash steeled herself, patting her tortoise’s shell lightly before beginning to take off towards the ground-embedded sphere. Despite the distance between her and the large object, it didn’t take long for her to arrive at the object's vicinity, flying alongside the scar in the ground. Just at the end, where the land cusped over the top part of the sphere, stood the fateful meteor-thing. Rainbow Dash had a bad feeling about this to say the least. She had read many times in fiction novels about aliens coming from meteorites and taking over Equestria. What if she would be like one of those farmers? Going over to a lodged asteroid and opening it only to find an alien waiting to eat her. She held back a shiver as she reached the ground in front of the large object. It had to be four times the size of the mare. It was made of a shiny black metal material, several doo-hickeys and devices all on it. There was a satellite dish or two on the side Rainbow was facing, destroyed and broken solar panels on different angles of it. A metal plate was dislodged, revealing a collection of wires and otherworldly technology within. Rainbow Dash had never seen anything like it. A bit of relief washed over her as she realized that it wasn’t some kind of alien containment pod or whatever, just some large device. She took a relieving breath, the feathers on her wings lowering.  Rainbow Dash walked up closer to the scorched sphere, prodding it lightly with a hoof to see what would happen. All that came in reply was a small dink of her hoof hitting metal. “What in Celestia?” She asked herself, moving her violet eyes up to the center of the object. An alien language looked back at her, three simple letters sprawled across the device. The first letter was shaped like a simple triangle, minus the base line at the bottom. The last letter seemed to be a sort of curved shape, like a circle if it lacked the line on the right. The center letter was too complicated for the mare to describe as she dug in her mind for any meaning of these drawings. Behind these letters sat a logo of a wireframe globe surrounded by three lines to form a protective triangle around it. Little to the knowledge of the brightly colored pony, the three letters on the device spelt out a simple abbreviation.  ‘A R C’