The tunnels, passages, and caves Lord Copper navigated through now were dilapidated to a degree that no other ones probably in all of Copper Section were. Broken equipment sat around everywhere and partial cave-ins covered up a lot of what had once been a hive of mining activity. Abandoned really was the best word for this place.
But it was still close. The exit was still close. A forgotten doorway that led out of the mines and into the southern mountains, it could even be considered an entrance into the mines depending on where you were coming from. But it had been boarded up ages ago, that was what the records said. Not an issue though. Not truly. He could easily break some boards and get out.
That would be the case if it wasn’t for-
“Haaah!” Rainbow Dash yelled as she plowed into Lord Copper from behind, knocking the both of them down a slanted tunnel until they hit a pile of rocks together.
“You madmare!” Lord Copper shouted and pushed Rainbow Dash off of him.
She grabbed his tail and made him trip but as soon as she tried to jump on him and keep him down he grabbed one of the nearby rocks and hit her in the side of the head with it.
“Ngh!” Rainbow Dash grunted as she fell to the ground, that was twice she had taken a blow to the head now.
Lord Copper tried to use the opportunity to scamper away from her but ended up getting pegged in the back of the head with a rock himself. Instead of trying to run he should’ve made sure she was knocked out. He collapsed to the ground and groaned in pain, rubbing his injured skull.
“Get over it you baby, it wasn’t even a big rock and I didn’t throw it that hard,” Rainbow Dash said as she walked up to him.
Lord Copper glanced to the side and saw the rock in question, desperately he grabbed it and stood up, swinging it at her. “Hah!”
Rainbow Dash easily stepped away from it, and then kept moving and dodging out of the way as Lord Copper tried to hit her. She looked bored. The stallion was just tiring himself out the more he swung at her, trying to get rid of the pest that had been hounding him for far too long. On one swing though he lost his grip and the rock sailed out of his hoof, clattering against the wall of the mine.
“Y-You...” Lord Copper panted heavily and backed away from Rainbow Dash.
“I’ve told you enough times to shut up, so I’m not going to bother anymore,” Rainbow Dash said and pushed him.
Lord Copper felt the ground give way behind him and he gasped as he ended up falling down an old ramp that he hadn’t noticed in his wild flailing. He roughly bounced and slid off it before coming to a halt on the hard rock ground once more. Rainbow Dash lightly landed on her hooves right in front of his face.
“So that’s it, huh?” She said, looking past him.
Lord Copper looked over his shoulder and saw an old boarded up doorway that the barest sliver of light was shining through. It was wide enough to accommodate a minecart if necessary. At one point it looked like there might have been a sign or placard above it, but whatever it was had rotted away. The Lord of Copper Section groaned and stood up, walking over to the door despite Rainbow Dash being right there.
“It’s all boarded up though,” Rainbow Dash said. “What do you think the best way to get out is?” She said to him.
He looked back at her with a raised eyebrow just in time to see her fly forward and spear him right through the door. The old boards of wood exploded into splinters and the both of them careened down the side of a hill. Lord Copper coughed heavily as he came to a stop in a patch of grass before looking up at the blue sky and the clouds above him.
Rainbow Dash was floating there too, looking at the beautiful day.
“Been a little while since I’ve seen the sky,” Rainbow said before lowering herself to the ground. Pine trees sat all around them, flowers grew, birds chirped, from the outside the mountain looked totally healthy and normal. It really was a beautiful day.
She sighed and turned to Lord Copper the moment her hooves landed. Her eyes were completely cold and made of ruby ice. “Alright, it’s over.”
“W-Wait...” Lord Copper sputtered and tried to crawl away on his back.
Rainbow Dash stalked towards him and raised her hoof.
“Stop! Please!” He begged.
“Why should I?” Rainbow growled.
“B-Because...” He looked around, trying to think of something, anything. “Because we’re even!”
Rainbow Dash stopped. “What?”
“We’re even!”
She lowered her hoof and stared hard right at him. “Even?”
“Y-Yes! Even! Y-You have to know that the only reason you made it out of there is because of me. You wouldn’t have even known about my escape tunnel otherwise. T-That other pony, the pink one, you would’ve been stuck with her if it wasn’t for me! So… so I know that you hate me for what I did, a-and I may have caused this situation in the first place, b-but then you would’ve been lost or trapped in that old mine if I hadn’t shown you the way,” he told her, trying to make this work however he could. “I’m alive, you’re alive, and we’re out here safe and sound together because of each other. Y-You have a strong sense of fairness, right? So you know it’s true don’t you? That we’re even. I-I mean even the bomb we used together to stop that mare was only there because of me! Think about it, please! What’s Oreville to you anyways? Let’s just let bygones be bygones and go our separate ways now, come on, don’t you owe that to me?” He clasped his hooves in front of his face and pleaded.
Rainbow Dash calmly stared down at him the whole time, even for a minute after he had finished his ramblings. And then a smile slowly formed across her face.
“Even, huh?” She grinned and chuckled and eventually started to laugh all out. “Even?”
“Y-Yes...” Lord Copper whimpered.
Rainbow Dash reached a hoof up to her face to wipe away a tear. “Well you know… I guess you’re right, Lord Copper. We are even. Nice and square. You’ve got a real point there.” She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Totally even, it’s true I might be dead or stuck if it wasn’t for you—so I guess I do owe you this one. We just went through a lot together so might as well let us both leave happy. Bygones and all that, no sense in keeping grudges.”
“T-That’s right, that’s exactly right!” Lord Copper nodded fervently, a happy smile on his face.
“So I guess I’ll be going,” Rainbow Dash shrugged with an easy grin on her face. “Bye, Lord Copper.” She extended her wings to take off—but then paused, blinking and folding her wings back in as a contemplative look came over her. “Oh. Wait. I just remembered something.”
Lord Copper’s smile froze and he tilted his head. “What?”
“Do you remember when we first met? When I first came into Oreville?” Rainbow asked him, holding a hoof beside her face as her eyes narrowed.
“V-Vaguely...”
“Well I was just thinking about it and I remembered something. Something you said, a favor you did for me,” she took a step forward and leaned down, looking him square in the eyes. “You said to make sure I got a “Warm welcome”, didn’t you?”
Lord Copper sputtered. “U-Um, I-I...”
“So we’re not even, are we? Cause I owe you for that, don’t I?” Rainbow Dash grabbed him by the collar so their faces were just about touching as she raised her blue hoof right beside their heads. “So let me give you a. Very. Fond. Farewell.”
“AHHHHHHHHH!”
“Everypony calm down, calm down! The danger has passed!” Lord Silver said to the huge crowd of ponies atop one of the Silver Section mountains. He, his direct subordinates, most workers in his administration buildings, and a host of civilians had all evacuated to this emergency muster zone. Much like over Copper Section, dozens upon dozens of safe zones existed in the mountains just in case something like this happened. While most damage from the explosions and collapsing mines was contained to Copper Section, there was still a risk to Silver and Gold as well. All of Oreville had evacuated.
“But what about Copper Section? I have family there, how bad is the damage?” A frantic mare shouted over the crowd.
“We have experts and rescue teams already on the way! The quakes have stopped and things are stabilized, I promise it will be okay,” Lord Silver answered.
“How did this even happen in the first place?!” Another stallion yelled.
“Yeah, what’s going on?”
“We heard about a lockdown in Copper Section right before the explosions!”
“How many ponies were down in the mines?!”
“My ponies, please!” Lord Silver said. “This is getting us nowhere—please just trust me for now and I will have answers for you soon. We mustn’t panic-”
A shadow flew overhead and Lord Silver and many of the other ponies on top of the mountain looked up. Silhouetted by the sunlight, Rainbow Dash came down with Lord Copper draped over her back. Ponies standing under where she was moved around to give her space to land, but she had no intention to. Shrugging her shoulders, she tossed Lord Copper off her and threw him to the ground where he rolled to a stop right in front of Lord Silver. His face was a mess of bruises and welts, so puffy and swollen his features couldn’t even be properly made out. The slight rising and falling of his chest was the only sign he was still alive at all.
“He’s the one,” Rainbow Dash said as she flew above the ponies of Oreville. “He put the bombs in the mines. He’s why this has happened.”
“B-But...” Lord Silver stuttered.
“Barnaby is dead,” Rainbow Dash said. “If you had any faith in him as a pony and as your Chief Constable, believe what I’m saying right now. Both Barnaby and I knew Lord Copper was behind this, and when the bombs went off we were in the middle of proving it. Barnaby died trying to prove Lord Copper is guilty.” Rainbow Dash looked over the crowd of ponies and loudly projected her voice. “Lord Copper of Copper Section is the one who destroyed the mines of Copper Section and ruined the city. Hundreds of ponies died because of him.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, leaning her head back before opening them again and staring down at Lord Silver. “Oreville is your city, not mine. I’m leaving things to you now… and I hope you can do things the right way.”
Rainbow turned and got ready to fly away-
“Your fault...”
She stopped, her eyes, and the eyes of Lord Silver and the other ponies looking to Lord Copper.
He was glaring at her through puffy, swollen, eyelids with his one visible eye, immobile on the ground. “It’s your fault… you’re the one… it’s your fault the bombs went off… your fault all those ponies died… your fault the lockdown happened...” he put all his strength into lifting up a hoof and pointing at her. “Your… fault. If you had never come to Oreville… nopony would have died, nothing would have gone wrong… if only you never came here.”
Rainbow Dash dispassionately looked down at him and calmly exhaled. “You can keep blaming me all you want, but in the end there’s only you.”
She shot off into the sky without another word, breaking through the clouds, and started to fly south. Rainbow didn’t wait for any questions or for the ponies left there to speak again or see what they would say about Lord Copper or herself. Oreville, Lord Copper, Barnaby, all of it was left behind as a tear fell from her eye.