//------------------------------//
// The Chase 
// Story: Dashing Through Paranormalities 
// by gapty 
//------------------------------//

Rainbow rode at high speed towards the crossroads before braking, turning onto Everfree Street and accelerating as quickly as possible. As soon as she passed the first street lamp she pressed the button on her phone — which was on a bracket on her motorcycle — to stop the timer.

“Hah, new record!” she exclaimed loudly and slowed down.

There was no need to ride at the highest speed her motorcycle could offer, as even the lower ones were more than enough to still her need for speed. She had certain points where she measured her time and gave everything, but most of the time she rode casually — relatively speaking — on the street.

As the ride went on, she turned her head to look behind, searching for any headlights she knew by now very well. The Night Hauler — as the truck driver called himself — never waited long to appear whenever she was doing her night rides. After Rainbow’s last attempt at overtaking that truck, she had to admit losing the race and instead chose to befriend him, which went more or less successful.

Whenever she tried to start a conversation with him, he gave his speech about freedom on the streets and the calling for speed, which then fired up Rainbow to go for her maximum speed.

Every. Single. Time.

And when the truck passed her and drove away out of her sight, she slowed down and could only wonder how the Night Hauler was able to make her do it again and again. At least she made some progress, as he now called her “pal” whenever he addressed her. Nonetheless, he remained a mystery to her. Where did he come from? Did he live in Canterlot City? How was his truck so fast?

Whatever the answers were, she always looked forward to the next time she would ride with him, just like tonight.

As she looked behind again searching for him, she indeed saw lights, but this time they were red and blue lights of a police car.

Come on, don’t you have anything better to do this late?

Rainbow accelerated and let the police car disappear behind her. It was no match for her motorcycle, but she still wondered why a single policeman was patrolling on Everfree Street so far outside the city.

However, once she saw the lights get brighter, she realised that this police car was also way quicker than she anticipated. How was every single vehicle so fast here?

She pushed her thoughts away, leaned down and accelerated to the top speed her motorcycle could do, but the police car only got closer to her until it was right on her tail.

Should she stop at the side of the road? No, something was wrong. That vehicle couldn’t be a normal police car, not with how easily it could catch up to her, and especially how dangerously close it got to her.

Was it trying to make her fall? She got confirmation on that as the police car suddenly rammed into her. Were it not for her quick reflexes, she would have fallen over due to the dangerous speed she was currently riding. The police car rammed her again, this time even harder.

It wants to kill me!

Out of options, she touched her geode and felt the power coming over her, not so that she could ride faster but to speed up her reaction time. An extra safety precaution.

Another ram. This time she couldn’t hold her balance anymore and jumped off of her bike. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she used her super speed to run — this would have killed her otherwise. Just in time, she was able to catch her motorcycle before it fell, then she returned it to its balance and jumped on it to continue riding.

As soon as she felt another ram, a thought came to her head to leave her motorcycle alone and run for her life. After all, whoever this driver was, he certainly was not a policeman.

Suddenly another set of headlights appeared from behind, which approached quickly towards them. Very familiar headlights…

“Howdy! I see that guy is after you. Very insisting lawman. Prepare for the call of freedom, you stickler!” the voice of the driver sounded over her radio.

In an instant, the truck pulled up next to the police car. Despite the noises from her engine, she could hear the thrust the truck gave to the cruiser to push it off the road. 

“Thanks, partner!” Rainbow replied and slowed down, the truck now driving next to her.

“No one’s gonna block our ways! The roads belong to us! We live for the burning tires and the smoke from the rubbers! We…”

Rainbow suddenly saw the police lights appear back behind her.

“He’s behind us!” she yelled over the radio and accelerated. 

“I said that this guy is a real stickler! Don’t be surprised!”

Suddenly the truck disappeared out of nowhere and its headlights returned back behind her, but surrounded by a dark black smoke.

Deciding that it was best to not question what just happened, she continued driving forward. From the lights she could determine that the truck had rammed and pushed the police car several times out of the road, but the chaser didn’t let go by any means and always drove back to the road after her.

“Hey, pal, a crossroad is before us, maybe you should drive back to the city?”

Rainbow couldn’t answer. She was going too fast to make the turn, but she couldn’t slow down or the cruiser would ram into her again. However, when the blue and red lights suddenly moved to the right, she knew that the truck driver was pushing it off the road again and braked. Just in time, as she saw the crossroad appear, she turned onto the street towards Canterlot City and accelerated again. Hopefully this was enough…

The truck disappeared and reappeared in smoke closely behind her, but the lights of the police car followed soon after. How was it still driving despite being rammed repeatedly?

As to make it even more chaotic, suddenly lights appeared above her. Due to the loud engine of her motorcycle, she couldn’t hear anything to figure out what it was, but she assumed that it was a helicopter. Did the policeman get backup to chase after her?

Suddenly Rainbow heard loud shots like from a machine gun above her. Just what was going on?

“Hey, pal, these flyers are shooting at the stickler. You better ride away while you can.”

She didn’t let it tell her a second time and immediately went to full speed, hopefully getting rid of the chaser. There was always time later to wonder what was going on. Soon, the shots of the machine gun were getting farther behind her and the lights of the police car faded away.







Now in Canterlot, she rode straight to her home, turned off the engine and left the motorcycle standing outside. As silently as possible — to not wake up her parents — she ran up to her room and took off her helmet, but didn‘t bother to take off her protective clothing, and fell down with heavy breathing on her bed.

That “police car” was definitely not a cop. It couldn’t be, not how it acted and what it was capable of. The truck driver could also apparently teleport now, and a helicopter had appeared out of nowhere to shoot at the police car… 

Was this some sort of Equestrian bad magic? Was the truck enchanted by it? Did a cop get consumed by that magic too? Where did that helicopter come from? She had to tell her friends about it.

However, the sudden sound of an approaching siren and a flickering blue and red light ripped her out of her thoughts. Carefully looking through the curtains she saw a single police car  — it was heavily scratched, dented and with a few holes on it — parking in front of her house. A slightly overweight man with a handlebar moustache came out of it, wearing black sunglasses despite it being nighttime.

He looked straight at her.

She closed the curtain and went through her options. She didn’t know what he was capable of, but if he really wanted to kill her (which was no doubt his intention), she had to act fast and perhaps even run away. Peeking through the curtains again, she shrieked in fear and fell backwards. He — no, it — was standing at her window, with its sunglasses down, revealing red glowing eyes and an inhumanly wide open mouth… It was like a black hole, with no teeth or anything else.

The cop raised its hand and struck at the window, shattering it into pieces. She activated her geode and was about to run out of her house, but stopped despite her shock. It could go after her parents if she ran away, so she stood at the floor and waved at it to catch its attention. The monster ran after her, its mouth giving a loud unintelligible roar.

“Rainbow? What is going on?” she heard her father yell.

“Don’t come out!” She ran down the stairs and hoped that the cop would follow her. Luckily, it did.

She led it out of the house to the street, before stopping at a crossroads and turning back. The engine of the police car started and it drove right at her. She didn’t wait and continued running without a straight goal in mind yet.

What should she do now? How would she get rid of it? Just what was it? A light in the sky and the sound of a helicopter gave her an idea. Whoever was in that helicopter, they were after the monster. 

She ran towards it and, when under it, waved at the direction the police car would come from. As soon as the police car was in its view, the helicopter shot again from their machine gun, the deafening sounds surely waking up anyone else who wasn’t already awake.

Rainbow made sure to run in circles to make the helicopter’s job easier, but the longer the machine gun was running, the more astonished she was from the monster in the police car. The windscreen was already shot down, holes covered the whole car, but it kept driving after her. It was definitely consumed by bad magic.

Finally, the car stopped and broke down, being shredded with holes at every inch on its surface. The monster in it climbed out and was immediately met with a heavy load of bullets. At first they didn’t seem to affect it, but after running after Rainbow, it stopped and fell on its knees, while what seemed to be black blood flowing down its body. The storm of bullets still didn’t stop as the monster fell down on its face and remained lying on the ground. Whoever was shooting from the helicopter really wanted to make sure to kill it — not like she was complaining.

At this point several lights inside houses had been turned on and spectators had gathered outside to see what was going on. At last, the machine gun had finally stopped.

“Wow, you don’t see this every day!”

Rainbow jumped in surprise as she heard Pinkie Pie saying that next to her.

“Aaah! Stop doing that!”

“What?” Pinkie asked curiously.

“Appearing suddenly next to me!”

“I called you several times, but you didn’t hear me because of how loud everything was.”

“Fair point.”

“So, what happened?”

“That’s a long story…” Rainbow sighed.

As they were talking, several police cars arrived on the scene and slowly approached with guns raised at the motionless monster. Rainbow took a look at the helicopter, wondering why it still remained up in the air when the danger was eliminated, and saw someone there aiming a gun in her direction.

Still having her geode activated, she stepped sidewards and just in time missed the dart that was shot at her. She picked it up from the ground, but remained in eye contact with the person from the helicopter, who took another try, but also missed.

“Uhh, orange gas!” Pinkie said and pointed at a manhole cover on the street, where said visible gas was coming out.

An uneasy feeling came over Rainbow. The person in the helicopter shooting darts at her and the gas must be connected somehow. But why? What was the purpose?

Without a word, Rainbow took Pinkie‘s hand and ran with her away from the gas, which was coming from almost every manhole cover she could see. She also had to dodge several shots from the helicopter, which was now following her.

She ran with her super speed away — Pinkie was still keeping up — and stayed closely near any walls and buildings to be as far away from the gas as possible, which soon covered the whole street they were on.

Her goal was Twilight’s home — the only place he could think of in her panic to go for help. She didn’t even have to knock or ring the bell because said person was already looking with her binoculars out of her window.

“Rainbow, Pinkie! What happened?”

“Rainbow was being chased by a police car but a helicopter—”

“No time for that!” Rainbow interrupted Pinkie. “Open the door or the gas will get us!”

“What gas?” Twilight asked, but then saw it stream out of the manhole covers on the streets. “Will do!”

The door was opened by Twilight’s mother, who let them enter and quickly closed the door.

“What is going on?” Twilight’s father asked, but then his eyes widened as he pointed at the door. “It’s leaking in!”

“I’m coming!” Twilight ran down the stairs with heavy breathing and gave everyone a gas mask to put on.

“Ergh, is this another one of your magical incidents?” the father asked, struggling to put his mask on.

“No!” Rainbow answered. “It’s… I don’t even know what it is!”

“Maybe a gas leak?” Pinkie asked. “It’s coming from the sewers after all.”

“I’ll call the sanitation department, maybe they will explain what is going on!” The father immediately went towards the phone.

“And I will change my clothes,” the mother said. “Not like we’ll be going to sleep soon anymore. Make yourself at home in the meantime — despite the circumstances.”







Twilight led her friends to her lab, where Spike (also in a gas mask) was handling test tubes by himself.

“I have prepared the samples of the gas!” Spike said as soon as he saw them.

“Good,” Twilight replied and put on her lab coat. “While I examine it, you, Rainbow Dash, can explain what had happened.”

“Why do you think it’s connected with me?” Rainbow asked.

“You have your protective costume on, meaning you had again one of your night rides.”

“Fair, but the gas is not my fault!”

“But it’s certainly connected.” Pinkie Pie said and took Spike in her arms and stroked behind his ears. “And you, good boy, have earned a reward for your work!”

While Twilight busied herself at her bench, Rainbow used the time to fill them up in what had happened tonight.

“…and here is the dart that the person shot at me.” Rainbow gave said object to Twilight, who had finished her work and had to wait for the results. 

“Nothing I immediately recognise, presumably a stunning arrow.”

“Stunning arrow?” Rainbow asked. “Why would they want to stun me?”

“I have my assumptions based on your story. Let me first check the results of the samples.”

Rainbow turned her head towards Pinkie, who had still Spike in her arms, and gave a confused look, to which Pinkie only shrugged.

“Just as I expected,” Twilight showed them a test tube. “The gas contains chemical components commonly used in sleeping pills and narcotics, plus certain substances I would need to analyse further. However, if that sample has turned blue…” She took another one in her hand, which had a light blue liquid in it. “See? This means that the gas has an element which can affect the neuron connections in the brain!”

Twilight remained silent, seemingly expecting a reply.

“And?” Rainbow asked.

“Yeah, I don’t get what that means,” Pinkie added.

“Well, this is for now just a hypothesis, as the concentration of that specific substance is too low to confirm it, but if my theory is right and the other components are also able to affect the brain, then the gas is able to make us forget this night.”

Forget? Rainbow immediately thought about the paper with notes about a repeating hallway. Despite already feeling uneasy, she became even more nervous.

“Uhh, so whoever released that gas wants everyone to forget that a monster was chasing after Rainbow!” Pinkie said. “And because they knew that Rainbow would just outrun it they wanted to stun her before she’d run away!”

Suddenly she gasped, put Spike on the ground and grabbed Twilight by her shoulders.

“Twilight, it‘s not the first time it’s being used! There was a birthday party where I had prepared balloons, a birthday cake and a funny pink camel-unicorn piñata for it, but then I woke up in the morning to see that the party was already done but I did not remember it!” Pinkie shook Twilight with all her might. “I forgot a party, Twilight! I never forget a party!”

Rainbow separated Pinkie from Twilight. “Wait, you mean that this gas thing has happened before? Like when I woke up in the hospital and couldn’t remember anything?“

“Yes,” Twilight replied. “I have noticed holes in my memory too, so the memory erasing is a solid theory that would explain many things.”

“But why?” Rainbow asked. “Why would… whoever it is, want us to forget this night?”

“Because we saw them.”

“Not them!” Pinkie gasped, then went near Rainbow’s ear and whispered to her: “I have no idea who them is.”

“The people in the helicopter,” Twilight explained. “It seems they…”

“Hold on, are they the ones keeping everyone in the city?” Rainbow interrupted her. “Is that why the internet connection is so freaking slow here?”

“Technically the right term is that we are in an input queue and our inputs sent are slow, not the internet, but this seems, with the given evidence we have, very likely.”

“Uhh, I don’t like the implications of that,” Spike muttered.

“Twilight, we are trapped in a city where someone controls every outside contact and exit we have!” Rainbow yelled. “And they can erase our memories!”

“Maybe we should write notes so that we don’t forget anything?” Pinkie suggested and took out a notebook out of her hair. “Let’s start with Rainbow’s current adventure!”

Suddenly the door to the room burst open and two men in black military uniforms and gas masks entered the room, but stopped as soon as they saw them. For a while no one said a word.

“7-2 to 1-1, subjects are wearing gas masks. Enforcing amnestics on them now.” The soldiers raised their guns at the girls and Spike.

Rainbow quickly pushed her friends behind a table, just in time to dodge the darts. Spike hid behind a box on the ground, but was too slow as a dart was stuck on his back.. 

“My head… it’s spinning.” Spike fell to the ground.

“Spiiike!” Pinkie screamed, while Rainbow had to hold Twilight in place for her to not run to her pet.

“7-2 to base, requesting to set local SRA at full capacity.”

“The what?” Twilight asked.

“Doesn’t matter! How do we get out?” Rainbow looked around. These people were guarding the door, so unless she would leave her friends behind, they had to find another way. 

“There is a secret passageway left to us,” Twilight whispered, “but we can’t leave without being seen.”

“Leave the distraction to me, you get out!” Rainbow ran with her speed to the opposite side of the passageway and waved. “Here I am!”

Immediately they shot at her, but with her power she could dodge easily. Suddenly the men were covered in a purple aura and pushed out of the room. Rainbow ran to the door and locked it.

“Nice job, Twilight,” Rainbow said.

“Where is the secret passageway?” Pinkie looked around the room.

“One moment, let me remove the cover.” Twilight raised her hands to a desk, which was then covered in a purple aura, but after being only pushed slightly, the aura vanished. “What? My powers are not working!”

“Then we have to push it!” Pinkie said and began doing it.

Rainbow ran to her too, but stumbled on her own feet as her powers were now also gone. “Mine is gone too.” How could this be?

“Must be the SRA…” Twilight muttered while she took a backpack and put the unconscious — or sleeping, based on his snoring— Spike in it.

Loud bangs were coming from the door and the girls hurried to push the heavy desk to the side. Once the passage was revealed, Twilight crawled in first, followed by Pinkie and then Rainbow.

“Normally I would close the entrance with my power, but,” Twilight grabbed with one hand her geode and raised the other, “yeah, it’s neutralised now. Doesn’t matter, keep going!”

They crawled forward as quickly as they could, before Twilight gave the signal to stop. She slowly opened a lid and peaked behind it towards her garden. 

“Seems clear. Be silent, we don’t know how many there are!”

They exited the passway and ran through the garden towards the bushes to hide.

“What now?” Rainbow looked around. The gas was still in the air.

“I’m writing everything down!” Pinkie said and took the notebook back into her hand. “Hm, where do I begin?”

“We don’t have time for that now! We need to escape!”

“I agree,” Twilight said. “Besides, if they capture us, they will just take the notes with them.”

Suddenly, they heard steps coming from the entrance of the house, which were getting closer.

“7-2 to 1-1, subjects have left the house and are now in the back area. Currently searching for them.”

Twilight quickly waved at her friends to follow her and they quietly crawled to the neighbour’s garden, luckily going undetected. They continued towards another garden as they heard one of the people speak again.

“7-3 to 7-2, signal is moving north-west.“

“Signal?” Twilight whispered and looked back to her friends. “Shut down your phones and remove the batteries!”

You gotta be kidding me…

They quickly followed the order and continued crawling away, but despite going a different direction the steps of the men were coming nearer.

“How do they know?” Twilight whispered in disbelief.

“Maybe we should split?” Rainbow asked.

“And repeat the horror trope? No!” Pinkie replied.

“I got an idea!” Twilight touched her geode. “Our powers are still not working, but I feel now a bit of the magic instead of nothing. We are getting away from the SRA blocking our powers.”

“Then let’s continue!” Rainbow said.

As they continued crawling through the gardens, the gas was slowly fading away, but the familiar sound of the helicopter from earlier came nearer, searching for something — probably them — with a spotlight.

“Great, now all their forces are looking for us!” Rainbow touched her geode. “Hmph, the geode is still barely useful.”

“Where should we go?” Twilight asked.

“Uh! What about the portal?” Pinkie asked.

“I don’t know…” Twilight replied.

“Do you have any better place in mind?” Rainbow asked, to which Twilight shook her head. “To the school then.”







The longer the chase went on, the more difficult it was for the three girls to stay unnoticed, as more and more people in the same uniforms were searching for them. One time someone was so close that they had to throw rocks to the opposite direction to fool the searchers, but what bothered them the most was that they always seemed to know where they were and that their geodes seemed to either slowly get their magic back or not seemingly at random places.

But despite the difficulties, they were able to get to the school area. Lucky for them, their geodes were — probably due to being close to the portal — able to pony them up, which they immediately did. Rainbow took a deep breath. She now felt way safer.

“So we just run to the portal, explain to the princess what happened and wait until they give up?” Rainbow asked.

“I really am not sure, aren’t we revealing the portal through that to them?” Twilight said.

“But they are able to stop our powers and make us forget things, I doubt they don’t already know about it.”

“Leaving the question about revealing the portal open, what even will travelling through the portal do? We will have to return at some point and then they can make us forget it ever happened.”

“That’s why I said we have to take notes!” Pinkie said. “And who will be a better notebook than the princess herself?”

“I see what you mean. Smart,” Twilight replied. “Then let’s wait till the spotlight of the helicopter goes away.”

As soon as the path was clear, they jumped out of their hiding and ran to the portal, Rainbow, due to her speed, was the first one to go through it. 







On the other side she laid there for a while. She had gone through portals four times before, but despite that, passing through the multicoloured lights and the body transformation remained weird to her and made her head dizzy. After collecting herself and immediately using her wings to get into the air, she looked around. The room of the crystal castle was dark — it was nighttime after all — but at least the moon was able to make out the silhouettes of the room. However, there was something strange, something missing.

Suddenly it hit her. She was alone! Where were Twilight and Pinkie? Didn’t they go through the portal? She looked at the mirror, which gave her the reflection of a lonely blue pegasus in a gas mask. However, something shiny was on her right arm — or rather hoof. Taking a closer look showed that it was some sort of green crystal…

This wasn’t her geode, that’s for sure. On the cruise trip she and her friends noticed how the geodes seemed to have vanished when they turned to ponies, so what had she one on her? She touched the crystal with her left hoof…

The crystal was inside her, with only the top stuck out of the skin. This night just threw more and more things at her, didn’t it? Perplexed, she sat down and stared at it.

No, she didn‘t have time for that. Where were her friends? They should have passed the portal already! She stepped a few steps back, went to the air and then flew with high speed through the mirror.







Luckily for her, she had kept her ponied up form when returning to her home world, as she was literally flying out of the portal. However, she immediately had to dodge a group of people in their black uniforms, who were already expecting and shooting at her. With her head still dizzy from the portal, she flew towards the first building she saw to hide from them: the school.

On one hand it was probably not a good idea to crash through a window to enter it, but on the other she couldn’t have done it otherwise, as the entry doors were most likely locked. Standing up from the shattered glass and the knocked over chairs and tables, she breathed sharply through her teeth and rubbed her arms, which had taken the most damage. Carefully removing a few remaining glass splinters from her costume, she walked out of the room.

She hadn’t seen Twilight and Pinkie, but from the people already standing before the portal she had to assume that they were caught while running to it. Of course they knew about the portal, that’s why they made it appear as if the path was safe! It was all a trap! She punched a random locker in anger, only to regret it afterwards. Now was not the time to make noises…

Without a goal in mind, she sprinted aimlessly through the hallways. As the memories of the green crystal on her hoof came into her head, she took a quick glance at her right hand, but didn’t see anything there. Had it been her imagination?

Suddenly she saw something, stopped and rubbed her eyes. Returning her view to the sight, she saw the person also looking at her with a wide opened mouth. Wouldn’t it be for the normal outfit instead of the motorcycle safety costume and the gas mask, she would have thought she was looking at a mirror, as another ponied up Rainbow was standing before her in a hallway between two doors.

“Who are you?” both said in unison, before they facepalmed in sync. 

“I’ll begin,” Rainbow said, “but be quiet. How did you get here?”

“I found a hallway that loops itself when you go in a straight line through these doors, so I decided to sneak out at night to examine it. You too?” this Rainbow asked.

She shook her head in reply. So the repeating hallway was indeed true, and she herself had indeed investigated it, until they had found and erased her memories of it.

“Nice outfit by the way. I assume you were also racing that truck? Pretty fast that beast, if you ask me. But why the gas mask?”

“You also met the Night Hauler?” Rainbow asked excitedly.

“Eeyup.” Her doppelgänger knocked on the door next to her. “Seems like these doors are portals into worlds with slight changes every time. Just annoying that I had to ‘borrow’ keys to open each of them.”

“Do you keep track of where your world is?”

“Of course! Your world is the 319th loop, I even wrote my signature on the door of the hallway where I came from just to be sure.”

Suddenly, they heard multiple steps coming nearer to them.

“Quick, hide!” Rainbow said to her travelling doppelgänger and ran towards an empty locker.

“Hide? Why?” the other Rainbow asked.

There was no time to answer. As Rainbow hid inside the locker and closed the door behind her, she saw through the small openings how her doppelgänger suddenly fell to the ground and three men were approaching her with raised guns.

“Where is her outfit and her gas mask?” one of the men asked.

“Probably tried to fool us by putting them off. Stupid girl.” 

Rainbow clenched her teeth hearing that, but remained silent.

“7-2 to 1-1, got a hit on that subject,” the same person who spoke the comment said over an operator.

“Took you long enough. Follow standard procedure and call it a night,” was the reply.

“Alright. Ted, take her, Eric, search for the gas mask and her other outfit. I’m gonna need a drink after this mission.” 

“Of course I am the one having to do the last jobs.” 

“Well, you’re 7-4, so you better find these things quickly.”

“Sure thing, 7-2.”

One of them kneeled down to throw the girl over his shoulder and then walked with “7-2” away, while the third was searching with his flashlight in the hallway, presumably for the “missing outfit”.

Luckily for her, he only searched through the rooms and the hallways and didn’t look into any of the lockers, but she still remained in her hiding place for what felt like eternity, as she heard the steps of him still going around the school. Every time she thought he had already left the building, she heard his steps coming nearer and saw the flashlight reflecting across the hallways. 

Suddenly the steps came very close to her locker, then she saw the man standing right in front of her, his back turned towards her. She didn’t dare to even breathe, as the man took his time to look at the hallway.

“Where did that brat hide her outfit? Comet owes me at least two whole packs of cider for all these tasks!”

Finally, he kept walking and Rainbow took as silently as possible a deep breath. Instantly he stopped. 

She felt the adrenaline crawl over her body, as her fight or flight response was just about to kick in, but she didn’t dare to move. Not yet.

“7-4 to 7-2, can’t find the subject's missing belongings,” he said to the operator.

“Just leave already. She will find it herself if she has to.”

The man walked away, to her relief. Despite not seeing his flashlight or hearing his steps, she remained hidden for a while until she was absolutely sure that he was gone.

She climbed out of the locker, before letting herself fall to the ground and removing the gas mask from her face. Finally it was over — at least, the chase was.

Looking at a clock revealed that it was already the fourth hour. What should she do now? They had presumably put her doppelgänger in her place in her room. She recollected what she was telling about herself. Repeating hallways… 

Let’s see this thing in action.

She went to the door she had seen her doppelgänger pass through and entered the room. Going in a straight line, she kept moving forward and opened the next door and, indeed, it was the same hallway she just was before again. She went back. Of course she’d forgotten the exact number of the loops her doppelgänger had done, but the signature should be enough for her to know where it was. 

When she left the school, she could have used her geode to run to her home, but she feared to grab the attention of… whoever these people were, and ran without her powers, keeping hidden as much as possible, back to her home. 

It was very silent and empty on the roads.







It was one thing to meet someone like yourself in school — come to think of it, it was no wonder Twilight reacted that surprised when she first met the princess — but it was another to see her in your bed sleeping like she belonged here. It almost gave her doubts that she was the actual Rainbow that belonged here. She shook her head. No time for self crises, she had to return her to her world. 

These men had just put her on her bed without bothering to change her outfit, which was, granted, a slight relief. She tried to pick her doppelgänger up in her arms, but when she did, both of their geodes suddenly lit up. She immediately backed up and the geodes went dark again.

Out of curiosity, and a gut feeling that it might be helpful, she took off the wristwatch with the geode of her doppelgänger and put it on her left hand next to her own geode.

In an instant, she felt the magic going through her body and ponied up, while the geodes shined brightly in a blue light. Usually she loved that state where she felt the energy inside her, but now it was almost overwhelming, as if she was about to explode from too much of it.

However, she knew that this was exactly what she needed right now. She took her doppelgänger, put her tightly around her shoulders, and took off with a speed that she had never run before. It was as if time had stopped going forward.

The next moment she was already before the school, the following moment she was already before the doors leading to the repeating hallways. She took a short break to remember which direction she had to go and how many loops she had to pass — more than three hundred, that was for sure — then ran through the doors and counted how many hallways she had passed through. Only a few seconds had passed as she was already at the three hundredth loop and had to glance at the doors to see if a signature had been made. When she saw it in the 319th hallway, she now clearly remembered the number and ran out of the school to bring her doppelgänger back home, but stopped as soon as she saw two policemen entering through the entrance doors.

It was a short eye contact that both parties kept without saying a single word, until Rainbow put her doppelgänger down, removed the geode not belonging to her of herself — she couldn’t prevent herself from exhaling in relief as the overwhelming power went away — and then took off leaving a rainbow coloured trail behind.

Suddenly she returned to the policemen, who were still standing there dumbfounded.

“Just so you know, she’s from this world and already forgot everything. Bye!”







As quick as she had left her room, she returned back without anything coming up on her way. In her bed she could still feel her geode powered up by magic, but it was slowly fading away. Best if she just tried to fall asleep…

She expected to not be able to do it and of course it came exactly like that. How so? Her mind couldn’t stop thinking about the events that had happened during the night. There were so many new things learned that turned her world upside down, but most important of all, she was the only one that would remember it.

So many thoughts, so many theories were shouting in her head trying to make sense of the questions: Why? Who were they? Some kind of Big Brother?

These thoughts occupied her mind so much that she almost missed her alarm clock ringing. Great, not a single hour of sleep tonight.

She stood up and walked outside to her motorcycle, which was still standing outside of the garage entrance. There were multiple visible bumps on it that were caused by the police car, but despite the damaged look nothing was broken.

Suddenly the ringing of a bell from a bicycle caught her attention.

“Oh, hi Derpy,” she greeted the girl and turned her view back to her vehicle, but another ringing made her look at her again.

“Thanks.” She took the letters from her and let out a long sigh, to which Derpy gave her a pat on her shoulders.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s just…”

“Your motorcycle?” Derpy asked her.

“That too… so many things had happened tonight. I just… hope that everyone will believe me.”

Suddenly they heard something fall to the ground, and when they turned their heads, Rainbow saw a neon light sign (with “OPEN” written on it) on the ground next to her motorcycle. Confused, Rainbow looked up, but couldn’t make up from where this sign might have fallen off. Did it appear out of thin air?

Immediately Derpy went to it and carefully examined it.

“Where did it come from?” Rainbow asked.

Derpy shrugged and put it into her bag.

“Wait, let me take a closer look…”

“It’s just a neon sign someone lost. I will bring it to the lost and found,” Derpy replied and sat on her bicycle.

“But—”

“Know how to pretend, Rainbow. Their ears are everywhere.”

Rainbow froze in her position. So Derpy knew about them? As she was climbing onto her bike, Rainbow noticed how the mail girl's left eye remained looking at the bag, where the neon sign was in.

She was only able to respond when Derpy was already gone. This was too much for one night, even for her, so she went back to her home. She would tell her friends about this night, but only when the time was right.







The car was rattling and shaking dangerously as he drove along the street. The last time he had taken very heavy damage to his car, it had taken several weeks to bring it back to a working state. He still can’t recall how exactly he was able to escape, but he wouldn't lose his mind over it, for he had more pressing matters before him. This time she won’t get away so easily!

Suddenly headlights appeared, quickly approaching him. Not that guy again… 

This time the truck driver was way more careless, as it rammed straight into him and pushed him off the street, before disappearing in a dark smoke. As soon as his car stopped moving, he pressed the gas pedal to continue driving, but the motor gave up. Angrily stomping he got out of the car and went to the street, watching with sunglasses at night the backlights fading away. However, suddenly the headlights of the truck appeared again and were coming in his direction very quickly. 

Too quickly.

He removed his sunglasses, revealing his red eyes and opened his wide mouth, giving a scream at the truck that dared to drive into him.

“This is for freedom, you stickler!”







Item #: SCP-973

Object Class: Euclid Neutralised