Rainbow Dash sat on her bed face-up deep in thought. Usually she would waste her time practicing for the Wonderbolts, or reading Daring Doo, another pass time was hanging with her friends that she would often do before Daring Doo.
But sitting around on her bed pondering about things was one of the things not expected of Rainbow Dash.
‘Why would he ask that question? Why am I so eager to answer it? Oh man this is weird.’
Rainbow Dash rolled around on her bed, tossing and turning as she tried to get comfortable. She couldn't figure out why he was so eager for that heart to heart…or why she was so eager to participate.
‘Does he love me? No, do I love him? No I don’t, I know I don’t. It doesn’t feel like love when I’m around him. He is cute though…but only like tank kind of cute, he’s not hot or anything! Ugh, this is so weird…’
Rainbow Dash pondered more about the conversation. ‘Rainbow do you want a family?’ She remembered his question, and she couldn’t figure out why she would answer it the way she did.
Looking back on it, she believed she could be a mother, but it’s not the kind of thing she would really think about from time to time. It was more of a forced answer to her.
“UUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHH!” Rainbow groaned loudly.
*SLAM*
“HONEY I’M HOME!” came a familiar voice from downstairs.
“We’re not married!” retorted Rainbow Dash from her room.
“Whatever! Where’s the food?”
“In the kitchen!”
“Sure…Hey come join me!”
“Why?” shouted Rainbow with a raised eyebrow unseen by her guest.
“We’re making dinner!”
“But I’m not hungry yet!”
“Yea well the sun’s going down! So you’ll be hungry later!”
Dash quickly thought about it, and hopped out of bed. She descended her spiral staircase from her room at the topmost part of her cloud home, and went downstairs to the kitchen where she saw Puppet Master without his armor on.
“Whoa dude, I don’t remember seeing you without your armor.”
“Like what you see?” said Puppet Master wiggling his eyebrows.
“Didn’t you already use that line?”
“Yea I di-HEY! How’d you know?”
Rainbow stifled a giggle. “I guessed. Hehehe.”
“Her name was Applejack.” said Puppet Master, looking dreamily at the ceiling, mocking the look of being love struck.
“Hehehe. So what you making?”
“No idea. I’m not much of a chef. Actually I don’t even cook. I can make sandwiches but I’d rather eat the ingredients, than put the sandwich together.”
“Oh man you’re worse than me. I can barely put a sandwich together.” She said with a smile.
“Well…this’ll be an adventure. Let’s get cooking!”
“Are you sure the finished product will be edible?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“WHOA that’s a big word Dash, are you ok?” I said in mock surprise.
“Shut up and get cooking.” She deadpanned.
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Shadow Master made his way out of the crater and started to rise to his feet.
“Hey boys look.”
Shadow Master looked up from his crouched position, to see three griffons eyeing him with nets and swords. Each had their own camouflage war paint to blend in with the environment. Judging by their look they could be a hunting party or a scout.
Great another hindrance.
“What is that?” Said the one on the left, with a hammer strapped to his back. He was eyeing Shadow Master up and down.
“I’m not sure, should we capture it?”
“Maybe we can’t eat it. Do you see the exoskeleton? It must be some sort of bug.” said the middle one, voice betraying her as female.
“But it’s face says otherwise.” remarked the one on the left. “Maybe there’s meat underneath.”
The female griffin eyed Shadow Master for a moment. “All right surround it.”
“If I may interject.” said Shadow much to the surprise of the hunting party. “I’m trying to find my way to Equestria, specifically Canterlot. Can you give me directions?”
“Whoa boss, it talks.”
“Yea I know, doofus!” She said glaring at the one on the left, who had given the remark. “So what are you?” She said to Shadow Master.
“What I am is not important. But my name should be feared by those who oppose me. My name is Shadow Master, I am king of the shadows, and master of illusion. Who might you be?”
“Gilda. These two are Markus.” She pointed to the one on her right, and then to the left. “And Terrance.”
“Good to know. Where’s Canterlot. I have to locate my lord.”
They all looked at him with quizzical expressions. “Are you talking about Celestia?” said Markus.
“Bah! That weakling of an Alicorn. Please I can derail her nation within seconds, with a good assassination. No I’m looking for my true lord, named Puppet Master. He can destroy the sun itself with a swing of his sword. And enslave the world with his will alone.”
“Celestia…weak?” said Terrance with a smirk. “Who does this guy think he is?”
“I’m Shadow Master, an assassin for the great lord Puppet Master.”
“But there’s no way you can think Celestia’s weak. I mean, if she didn’t control the sun, I’m sure we’d think she’s weak, but dude, she controls the sun!”
“Yes and my lord is more powerful than her. He can move the heavens if he wanted, but chooses not to. I fear for the freedom of the ponies under Celestia. Obviously she has no right to rule because she inherited the title, rather than earned it. Those ponies are blind.”
“Well good luck.” said an uninterested Gilda. “Canterlot’s that way.” She pointed behind her.
“Thank you, may your hunt be plentiful.”
“Thanks.” said Markus, while the others eyed him suspiciously.
He flew off into the sky with his demon wings.
“That was weird. I pity him if he tries to fight Celestia.”
“Yea? Well I don’t! Come on! We’re still on a hunt. I’ll rather go back to Ponyville than lose the trail.” growled Gilda with a scowl, and began following the tracks they had ignored, because of their encounter with the unknown being.
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It was Hunger’s turn to stare at the black tower in confusion. There seems to be too much activity around the tower itself to be dormant.
“Celldric…we need to check it out.” said Hunger after staring for over an hour.
“About time friend. I knew you wouldn’t succumb to inactivity for too long.”
“Let’s fly. It’ll be faster, and we’ll be able to get there before nightfall.”
They both spread their wings, jumped into the air, and flew toward the ominous and active black tower.
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“HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!” Puppet Master and Rainbow Dash laughed harder than they’ve ever laughed in ages.
And it was because they put out their fifth fire from cooking so badly.
“OH man! That was awesome! What should we cook next?” laughed Rainbow Dash, getting off the ground and giving Puppet Master an eager smile.
“Hehe, uhhhhh.” Puppet Master browed through the cookbook that was slightly burned from all the fires created by the stove made of clouds. At first he was amazed at how clouds can burn, but his fascination turned to hatred, once he realized the fire had the tendency to spark lightning bolts at the food, it either fried it or zapped him. The second time it happened, Rainbow took over so he wouldn’t get shocked, since her body was made to survive those without much trouble. “OH let’s try smoked carrots. That doesn’t look like it would blow up in our faces.”
“Boooooooring.” Rainbow scoffed. “Something else.”
“Hmmmmmmm…” Puppet Master flipped the page. "Mhmm… no… nope… maybe?... no…. rainbow noodle soup? Says it’s made with real rainbow to make extremely spicy and requires an open flame.” Puppet Master and Rainbow Dash shared a blank look for five seconds before-
“LET’S DO IT!” They shouted in unison.
“I’ll grab another full raincloud, just in case.” said Rainbow Dash taking the old one outside and quickly returning with a new one.
“All right. Safety measures check. Let’s cook something!” Puppet Master said eagerly.
“Wait, we were cooking?” asked Rainbow Dash, legitimately surprised.
They looked at each other before bursting out into laughter.
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Puppet Master and Rainbow Dash sat and enjoyed the first meal they cooked together after eight tries. They finally let their stomachs get the best of them and they tried cooking smoked carrots with success.
“Oh man, that was fun.”
“The part where we caused over one hundred bits worth of fire damage, or the part where we put out the fire?”
“The cooking dummy.” teased Rainbow Dash playfully.
“Hey!...I knew that.” said Pup.
“So Pup where’d you go anyway?”
“Oh, it seems Dark Wolf’s new name is Darkness. Not only that, but he built me a castle that he’s renovating right now to fit the needs of a city. It’s actually in the distance, and I’ll show you it tomorrow.”
“Really? The other guys made it?”
“Eyup.”
“So where are they? And what do they do?”
“Darkness is my castle keeper. He protects my castle while I live peacefully in it. He also changes the castle, whenever he wants to or I tell him too. I’m currently getting him to build a city inside the tower.”
“Where’s the tower anyway?”
“Over….there.” He pointed a finger towards the wall.
“Oh that’s useful.” deadpanned Dash.
“I know right? Now you know exactly where the tower is. Actually you can see it from here, just fly high enough, and you can see it some place near Cloudsdale.”
“Oh ok I’ll check it out sometime then.”
“Actually I was thinking we’d go together around lunch or so.”
“I’m off then, so that’ll do.” She yawned loudly. “Oh wow, I’m tired.”
“Night then. I need some time to think about how I’m going to go about the rest of my stay.”
“Meh, sure. Night.” She got up from the table while Puppet Master put away the dishes and cleaned up. Rainbow was upstairs when he realized something.
“Bitch made me clean up after her! Fucking messed up.” He joked to himself.
Later that evening, all the lights were off and Puppet Master was in the room alone by himself, and lying on the couch.
‘What should I do? I overheard Darkness say he had biomes of corruption in the castle where he gets his Eater of Soul army. Well at least that’s what I assume he was referring too. But there’s a problem with how big the biome actually is. And how much he can produce at once. He already made a sizable enough army to protect the tower. By tomorrow he may be able to conquer Canterlot if I ask him too.
But then again, Celestia has a big army…I’ve seen and fought alongside it. However they had no chance of surviving without me and my friends helping out. Maybe I shouldn’t think of family just yet…maybe conquest is my best option. Or at least the most fun of course.
I would like my own nation. And if I remember, there was an option of killing the princesses and creating the Rod of Sun and Moon that I remember seeing that was made out of souls of might. However I’m not sure I actually want to do that…maybe just cut off their horns? Yea…I should only worry about this when I’m forced to think of this…
Puppet Master looked around the dark room he occupied at the moment. Surely Rainbow’s generosity shouldn’t be squandered so quickly. It’d be best if he were to conduct these operations in the shadows, and keep the conquest of Equestria a secret objective for later.
‘Even though conquering Equestria would be fun and all, I still want to have an option to get away from it if things go south. Maybe I should find a way to create a body of a pony that I can transfer my mind into…ah who am I kidding that’s impossible…wait…Radiant Garden is my local life expert. What if he can supply me with the means to get this body? Better yet if he can transfer me to that body that’d be great! Now if only I could find him…’