Lord Copper’s minecart sped through the tunnels like a bullet, going so fast he was actually a little bit scared. He really didn’t know how to properly use this thing and when to apply the brakes and when to just let the cart glide freely along the tracks. Thankfully so far he hadn’t hit any sharp turns but he was worried that if any part of the tracks were in poor condition he would be going too fast to stop in time.
“S-Stupid tunnel, I should’ve done more work on you,” Lord Copper said as he clung onto the edge of the minecart for dear life.
Though in reality he was just incredibly angry that he had to use his last resort escape tunnel at all. That pegasus, and Barnaby too, they had ruined everything. All of this was their fault, if they hadn’t stuck their noses in his business, if she hadn’t stopped him from getting to the mines, nopony would’ve been hurt and Copper Section wouldn’t be falling apart. All. Their. Fault. Not his, theirs. His jaw clenched in anger the more he thought about it, his wonderful city of Oreville, that he loved, that he should be on the fast-track to ruling and making even better, was now in this sorry state. And the poor ponies living there too, even if some had proven to be ungrateful trash, were suffering.
One day he’d fix all of this. He wasn’t a villain or a stooge or a selfish idiot, he just knew what was best for Oreville and didn’t want it to be held back by anything. That pegasus was wrong about him.
One day everypony in Oreville will love him just like they should.
The minecart came out of the narrow tunnel it was in and started speeding through an elaborate honeycomb of a mine, with lots of wide open spaces, treacherous holes, and other tracks that were now visible going through other areas. Bridges, both natural and pony made, arced around the open mine and had old tracks running over them. None of them were in use now though aside from his, but he wondered just how many times they criss-crossed and met each other like this. From the old plans of this mine he had studied there were lots of open caverns and parts where two or more tracks ran parallel to each other. A number of switches that would change your cart’s track if they were flipped also stood up between the tracks every now and then. He didn’t need to bother with those though, sticking on this track was all he needed.
His cart went once more into its own separate tunnel and Lord Copper temporarily relaxed. Nothing to worry about anymore, he was on his way out of here, the pegasus was gone, Jarvis would be meeting up with him later, things were okay. While he couldn’t exactly say he had won today his enemies hadn’t won either.
“HEY!” A shout echoed down the tunnel.
Lord Copper’s eyes went wide and he looked back to see an angry pegasus flying right at him. “Ahhhhh!”
Rainbow Dash crashed into him and the both of them sprawled to the floor of the cramped minecart. She had practically banged herself up just as much as him when she did that.
“Ngh! You have to be kidding me!” Lord Copper roared as he tried to sit up but found himself quickly receiving a kick in the stomach. “Oof!”
“Stay down! I’m bringing a stop to this!” Rainbow said and crawled over him, reaching up to the lever and pulling it back to activate the brakes.
A grinding noise came from below the cart and sparks flew as the brakes locked in, slowing down the minecart considerably. The rocky tunnel around them stopped being such a blur, but not for long as Rainbow Dash felt Copper’s hooves wrap around her waist and yank her backwards. She lost her grip on the lever and the brakes clicked off the wheels, letting the minecart resume its journey while Rainbow Dash was thrown against the back of the minecart, her head clanging off the metal. Despite the temporary stars in her eyes she jammed an elbow into Lord Copper’s ribs on reflex and made him release her and slide away to the other side of the minecart.
Rainbow Dash was tough, but her strength primarily came from the speed she could put behind her blows. The same type of speed she really couldn’t built up fighting inside a cramped space like this. And despite everything else, Lord Copper was still an earth pony and he was quite a bit sturdier than most pegasi.
Lord Copper reached out to punch her but Rainbow batted his hoof away with her wing and punched him in the face in return.
“Ow, my nose!” Lord Copper yelped and covered his face with his hooves.
Luckily he was also still just a pansy.
“Are you seriously going to keep trying to fight me?” Rainbow Dash asked as she stood up and kicked him in the stomach again. “Your guards didn’t have a very good time and you’re even less of a fighter than they were.”
She grasped the lever as he wheezed and put on the brakes again, the minecart slowing down some more. “You don’t know me very well at all. If you did you’d know I wouldn’t give up on getting you so easily.”
“This isn’t even your city, you shouldn’t even be meddling with us!” Copper yelled from his prone position on the minecart’s floor.
Rainbow Dash snorted. “Barnaby said something similar, but for different reasons. Even if this isn’t my home, ponies in need are still ponies in need. I’m not going to turn a blind eye to that. If you didn’t want me to meddle with Oreville, you shouldn’t have been playing as a villain.”
“I’m not a villain!” Lord Copper screamed and jumped up at her with enough energy that it surprised Rainbow Dash and caught her off guard. He grabbed her and knocked her into the side of the cart, lever coming loose again, and tried to wrap his hooves around her neck and strangle her.
He had the physical strength to do it but he wasn’t thinking about what Rainbow Dash could do to get out of it. A punch across his face and a knee into his ribs made him collapse with a pained groan against the other side of the cart. Rainbow Dash panted slightly as their cart emerged into a large cavern with multiple different pathways, levels, and tracks running through it. She grasped the lever and started to apply the breaks again.
“I said playing the villain. You don’t even deserve to be called a real villain,” Rainbow said to him.
As the cart slowed down though, another familiar sound reached Rainbow’s ears. She looked down another tunnel just in time to see a second minecart with two ponies riding in it come shooting out of it. The one holding a shovel she recognized while the other she didn’t but she doubted he was friendly either.
“Lord Copper!” The pony she didn’t recognize shouted as soon as he saw the slumped over lord. “Are you alright?”
“W-What does it look like, Jarvis?! Just save me already!” Lord Copper shouted.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to have the opportunity to bash that pegasus’s skull in,” Malthus said as he glared at Rainbow Dash.
“Great, just what I need,” Rainbow Dash shook her head.
Their minecart came by on the track that was running right next to Rainbow and Lord Copper’s. And thanks to them not pulling the brakes, they quickly caught up to them. Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue and let go of the lever while Malthus brought up his shovel. She was about to fly out of the minecart to get away for the moment when Lord Copper bit her wing.
“Ow!” Rainbow yelped right as Malthus swung at her.
Instead of going over it she ducked under the shovel instead and it swung right above the minecart, Jarvis and Malthus then sped past Rainbow and Copper. Rainbow Dash shoved Lord Copper off her and punched him in the face again to keep him down for at least another minute longer. Jarvis grabbed the lever of his minecart to slow them down so they could attack Rainbow again and once she put her head back up she had to dive under another quick swipe from the rusty shovel.
“Stupid bird! Stay still!” Malthus yelled.
“Make me!” Rainbow Dash stuck her tongue out at him.
Malthus tried swinging again but a sudden change in the tracks had them drift away from her and Lord Copper.
“Curses!” Jarvis growled, trying to look ahead to see if they would ever come back alongside each other.
Rainbow Dash saw her opportunity to fly over to them—when her minecart suddenly passed under a stone bridge that she would have accidentally smashed herself into. She took a much more careful look around the cavern and saw how messy and riddled with random stones it was. Not a good place to fly and chase ponies through. It might’ve been best for her to stick in her minecart until it hit the end of the tracks and then she could deal with them all.
“Jarvis, look up there!” Malthus pointed ahead at a switch in the tracks. The manual switch in-between the two tracks could be hit and their minecart would be switched right over to the same track as Rainbow and Copper’s.
The chief of security grinned. “Use that shovel!”
Malthus grinned right back at him and put his shovel out, smacking it into the switch and making them change tracks. Their minecart glided over the steel tracks and came to end up almost smashing into the side of Rainbow Dash and Lord Copper’s cart. A quick pull of the lever by Jarvis and the brakes slowed down his cart just enough where they came up sliding in right behind Rainbow Dash and Lord Copper instead.
“Really?” Rainbow Dash grunted in annoyance and got ready to fight.
Jarvis let go of the brakes until their minecarts were practically touching and Malthus had free reign to swing his shovel at Rainbow Dash all he wanted. He brought it down at her in a heavy over-hoofed strike but because they were so close together now Rainbow Dash was able to reach up and grabbed the neck of the shovel right beneath the blade. She and Malthus both fought over it as their minecarts sped along until Jarvis joined in, reaching across the gap between the carts and trying to punch Rainbow and dislodge her hooves from the shovel.
“Oh, two on one? You should’ve brought a whole squad!” Rainbow Dash bragged as she knocked his punches away and tried to hit him too.
“They’ll be here soon, diplomat! And then you’ll be finished,” Jarvis said.
“I can’t wait to prove you wrong,” Rainbow grinned.
Just as she said that the sound of more minecarts coming through the tunnels reached them, looks like they had caught up because of the slower speed Rainbow and the others were going right now. One minecart emerged from a tunnel on a level above theirs, carrying two frantic and terrified looking ponies in it. When they saw Rainbow and the others below, one of them applied the brakes to slow down a little.
“Boss! Lord Copper!” The other yelled.
Jarvis grinned up at them. “Alright, now we’re talking. Where are the others? We need all the help we can get.”
“They’re dead!” The guard responded.
“Huh?” Jarvis’s face fell and even Rainbow Dash and Malthus both glanced up at the two guards while Lord Copper slowly stirred.
“This p-pony—this mare came from nowhere and killed everypony else!” The guard shouted. “She’s-”
The sound of a speeding minecart from another tunnel grew louder and the two other guards paled and looked back up the tracks.
“Oh no...” The one holding the lever whispered, letting go of the brakes to try and make up for the lost speed.
Rainbow Dash bit her lip and used the distraction to wrench the shovel out of Malthus’s grip and toss it behind her into the minecart next to Lord Copper. “Sorry, but I know who that is, and none of us can afford to be fighting like this now.”
“What in the hay are you talking about?!” Malthus growled at her and took a swinging punch at her head.
Rainbow ducked under it and punched him as hard as she could, making him fall down into his cart. “I just said—look! If you want to live then help me out right now, we need to speed out of here faster so she doesn’t catch us!”
“Who’s she?” Jarvis asked.
He had his answer as a minecart came shooting out onto the same tracks as the other one, going so fast it didn’t look like the mare riding it had ever even considered touching the brakes. The two guards screamed as she collided right into their minecart, knocking them down and almost bumping it off the tracks altogether. But the pink mare reached out a hoof to grab the edge of the minecart and hold it steady, connecting the both of them. She smiled as she turned her head and stared directly at Rainbow Dash.
Heartless waved at her and winked.
“That’s her,” Rainbow Dash frowned.
“W-What’s going on?” Lord Copper said as he regained his senses.
The two dazed guards got back up only to practically freeze in fear as they saw the pink pony right there. Heartless turned her sweet face to them and started climbing over into their minecart.
One of the guards jumped out immediately, not caring about the deadly speed and the rocky ground he was jumping out onto. He just had to get away from her. Rainbow and the others watched as he landed with a sickening thud and rolled into a stalagmite before he disappeared behind them. The other guard just backed away, muttering to himself and crying until Heartless jumped into the cart beside him and touched him on the cheek to make him drop.
The others gaped up at her in shock but Rainbow only narrowed her eyes.
Heartless looked right down at the four ponies and placed her hooves on the edge of the minecart like a dog happy to see its owner coming home. “Alright, you’re next!”
“Oh forget this!” Malthus said and reached into his cart.
“What are you doing?” Jarvis asked him, a bead of sweat falling down the side of his head.
Malthus answered by picking up the bomb they had and holding it for all to see. “I swear if any of you try anything I’ll blow us all to piece with this! So you-” he pointed up at Heartless. “You crazy mare, whoever you are, you stay away! And you-” he glared at Rainbow Dash. “How about you just fly out of here and let us go?”
“Why do you have a bomb?!” Lord Copper yelled in shock.
“You can shut up too!” Malthus frothed. “I’m not letting things end here for me, so everypony just shut up and listen to me!”
“Malthus you idiot, you’re going to get us all blown up!” Rainbow said.
“Not if you don’t get-” Malthus’s sentence was interrupted as both his and Rainbow Dash’s minecarts hit a slight bump in the track.
The bomb flew out of his hooves and landed right between Rainbow Dash and Lord Copper in their minecart. Luckily it didn’t explode immediately but as it bounced back and forth before finally lying down, there was a distinct sound coming from it: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...
“Uh oh,” Jarvis gulped.
Rainbow and Lord Copper both shared a look before both lunged for the bomb, fighting for control over it.
“C-Copper! Let go!” Rainbow Dash said.
“You let go! Unlike you, I know how to disarm this whenever I want! I’ll keep you away with it you interloper!” He said.
“Would you both please get some sense and just disarm it right now?!” Jarvis yelled at them.
His and Malthus’s minecart then lurched once more as a pink pony jumped through the air between her cart and theirs and landed on the back of it, her hooves just barely gripping the back edge. For most ponies, jumping at that high speed and at that distance would’ve been a suicidal attempt. Most would’ve been too afraid to even attempt it. Heartless didn’t feel fear. And she wasn’t smiling now.
Jarvis and Malthus gasped and backed up against the front of the minecart as Heartless pulled herself in. Her blue eyes darted right to the gang leader.
“No one can harm Rainbow Dash,” she said and reached a hoof out towards him.
“W-Wait-” Malthus begged before Heartless’s pink hoof tapped his forehead and his eyes rolled back, the life sucked right out of him.
Jarvis slowly turned his head with tears forming in his eyes as he looked at Lord Copper. “B-Boss...”
Heartless tapped the back of his head and Jarvis’s body fell forward, draping itself over the front of the minecart. Her smile was now right back on her face as her eyes glanced up to Rainbow Dash. Their carts then both entered a new tunnel, separating from the multiple other tracks and larger cavern to once again travel at high speed with nowhere else to run or fly through.
“Your turn.”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes darted to Lord Copper. “Five second truce?”
“T-Truce!” Lord Copper squealed and let go of the bomb.
“Smart,” Rainbow Dash grinned and tossed the bomb over Heartless’s head and back into the other cart while the pink pony was climbing over Jarvis and getting ready to jump into theirs. She then picked up the shovel and hit Heartless in the hoof with it, making her lose her purchase and fall against the front of the cart as well. Although naturally it didn’t hurt the pink pony one bit.
“Hey, Heartless?” Rainbow Dash said as she held up the shovel.
Heartless glanced up at her and tilted her head. “Yes?”
“Bye,” Rainbow Dash stabbed the shovel down at one of the front wheels of the cart. The blade of it caught under the wheel and dislodged it from the track, wrenching the shovel out of Rainbow’s grip as well.
Heartless’s cart screeched as it caught on the track and flipped over, dumping Heartless and the other contents along the track where they and it continued to bounce a few times, shooting up sparks and banging itself and the track up. Rainbow Dash and Lord Copper sped away, disappearing around a corner in the tunnel and leaving Heartless alone. What would’ve killed probably any other pony was nothing but a slight inconvenience to Heartless though and she calmly picked herself up while surrounded by the destroyed pieces of the minecart and dead bodies and prepared to resume her chase of Rainbow Dash.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...
Heartless glanced down at the bomb sitting on the tracks right next to her. She sighed.
“This is going to take forever to dig my way out of...”
A huge explosion rocked the mine and completely caved in the tunnel, burying Heartless under tons of rock and cutting off Rainbow Dash and Lord Copper from the rest of the mines. A blast of hot air rushed from the explosion and buffeted the two of them while their minecart continued along. But otherwise the two were unharmed. Rainbow Dash wiped the sweat from her brow and even Lord Copper sighed in relief. The two then blinked as they remembered who the other pony with them was.
The five second truce was over.