The nurse was getting pretty annoyed, but didn’t feel like getting the authorities involved.
“Don’t you two KNOW how to get along?!” She exclaimed. “You are married, right?”
“Not anymore. As soon as I get out of this hospital, I’m getting a divorce.” Rainbow replied.
The nurse put a hoof on her face.
“If I were in charge around here, I’d throw both of you out and tell you to sort it out yourselves!”
“But aren’t we still healing?”
“You both look okay to me! Besides, you two are the reason you two are even here!”
Rainbow was without a response. She just blankly stared at the angry nurse.
“You know what? I’m going to go speak with the front desk and see if I can’t get you two demons out of here.” The nurse said, much quieter this time.
Once she left, it was silent around the room.
“…So are you still mad at dad?” Blaze asked.
“Not quite as much. I think I made my point.” Rainbow responded.
“So are you going to return to him?”
Rainbow gave Blaze an annoyed look.
“What do you think? I said I wasn’t quite as mad. I didn’t say I wasn’t mad at all.”
“Oh…”
…………………………………
Flash began to slowly wake up. When he looked around, he saw that he had been put in his own room.
He put a hoof on his broken and swollen nose. Sure, it could handle one. But two punches?
“Ah…it just doesn’t make sense. Rainbow is violating so many things right now. This just isn’t her…”
Flash thought out loud to himself.
“She’s not being loyal. That’s the most important part. She broke every single vow she made back up on the altar. I mean, we’ve been through so much. Blaze and Starlight are just one example on that. How could she throw it all away over one little fight?”
Flash noticed a nurse staring at him through the door, confused.
“Heh heh…I guess you heard all that?”
The nurse just slowly kept walking. However, another one walked in behind her.
“Mr. Flash?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“You and Rainbow Dash will be leaving now.”
“What?! Why?”
“Mr. Flash, this is a hospital. Not a civil-war battlefield. Most of us here are getting pretty sick of your inability to cooperate with Rainbow, who is supposed to be your wife.”
Flash just sighed, defeated.
He climbed out of his bed, and walked toward the door. The nurse followed.
When Flash got to the front door, Rainbow Dash and the children were standing at the desk, checking both of them out of the hospital.
“Rainbow?”
“Don’t talk to me.”
Flash sighed.
……………………………………
Once they left the hospital, it was dark outside. Flash could see that Rainbow was heading in the wrong direction from Soarin’s.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“I have to go to your place to get my stuff. Duh.”
“Oh…”
As Rainbow flew off with the kids, Flash flew in the other direction. He was heading for Soarin’s to talk to him about Rainbow’s decision.
………………………………
Once Flash had gotten there, he knocked on the door.
After several minutes, there was no answer.
Confused, he knocked on the door again. Still no answer.
Something didn’t feel right to him. He got a weird feeling that something was wrong in there.
Flash looked back and forth to make sure nopony was watching. Then, he stepped back, jumped forward and kicked the door down with his hoof.
The house appeared to be completely empty.
However, Flash could hear groaning noises echo all around him.
“H…hello? Anypony home?” He stuttered.
“Uhhhhhh……”
Flash crept around Soarin’s house, afraid that something was going to jump out at him at any moment.
As he neared that back of the house, the groaning got louder. It was echoing the loudest by the basement stairs.
Flash gulped, and slowly descended the stairs toward the basement.
When he reached the bottom and turned on the light, he gasped loudly and stepped backward in shock.
Both Soarin and Rainbow Dash were suspended upside-down, trapped in large, green cocoons that hung from the ceiling.
“R…R…Rainbow? What are you doing down here?”
Flash ran forward toward the big, sticky bubble that his wife was encased within.
“Rainbow!”
Rainbow groaned, and slowly opened her eyes. When she saw Flash, she went crazy.
“Flash, help me! Help!”
Flash could hear Rainbow calling, but couldn’t make out the words.
Rainbow began to kick around and flap her wings, but couldn’t break free of her bondage.
Hearing all the commotion, Soarin began to wake up. He saw Flash trying to help Rainbow, and began to make noise.
“Hey! Over here!” He called.
Once again, Flash could hear him, but couldn’t tell what he was trying to say.
He stopped and thought for a second, and came to an idea.
“Wait here. I think I found out how to free you two!”
Flash ran upstairs, and outside to Soarin’s garage. From there, he searched around for a sharp object.
Eventually, he came to a pair of hedge-clippers.
“Alright, this is close enough.”
As fast as he could, he raced back downstairs to the basement, and grabbed a stool. He set the stool up next to Rainbow’s cocoon, and stood up on it. From there, he used the clippers to snap the cocoon from the ceiling.
The cocoon fell to the floor and broke open, freeing Rainbow from her imprisonment.
Flash did the same with Soarin, and he was free from his cocoon.
“Rainbow, how did you get here so fast? I thought you were heading to my place to get your stuff.”
“Flash, that wasn’t me! That was a changeling who looked like me!”
“Wait…what?”
“Remember when I left to tell Soarin about the alicorn foal? While I was at his place, a changeling captured us! It fed off of my blood, and turned into me to fool you! See?”
Rainbow turned at an angle, and showed Flash a swollen bite-mark that had appeared at the base of her neck.
“After that, it imprisoned us in two large cocoons, and left.”
Flash was silent for a couple seconds, trying to wrap his mind around what Rainbow had said.
“Wait…so these so-called ‘changelings’ feed off of blood?” He asked.
“No, they actually feed off of the love two ponies have for each other. This changeling fed off of my blood so it could not only turn into me, but copy off my memories. That way it knows everything that has happened to me, and everything we’ve done together. EVERYTHING.”
“Gee, that’s kind of perverted.”
Soarin chuckled.
“You’re missing the point!” Rainbow exclaimed.
“So how do you know all this stuff?” Flash asked.
“It told us right before it imprisoned us.” Rainbow responded.
“Well, of course it did! How come I didn’t think of that?”
Rainbow ignored his humorous response.
“We were stuck in those cocoons for a couple of days. What time is it?” Soarin asked.
“It’s after dark. Why does it matter?”
“Because changelings are strongest at night. It could be anywhere by now, and it wouldn’t be very pleasant to run into it.”
“Okay, think of this as a lockdown. If any of you two leave, it could spell certain disaster. Stay down here at ALL COSTS. I’m going to go look for our little Rainbow-Dash-impersonator.”
“Flash, no!” Rainbow yelled.
Flash was already out the door.
……………………………………
Flash ran towards his house through the heavy drape of darkness that enveloped Ponyville.
Turning one corner, he heard a chuckle. He stopped in his tracks, and turned toward the shadows where the chuckle had come from.
“Hello, Thunder Flash.” Rainbow Dash said, stepping out into the light.
To be Continued…
Author Notes:
All the ideas are coming together, and I think this is shaping up to be a pretty sweet finale!