Marshall started to laugh, “silly, silly little vampony. Do you really think that will help your cause? Yelling at me? Really now, since when has that ever worked for anypony? It’s a pretty stupid cliché that you shouldn’t do. Now, I want this to be a fair fight, therefore, I will place this little pony in a safe spot and only bring her forth if emergency calls for it. Now, are you ready to get a piece of this huge flank?” He mumbled in a deafening voice. Chills ran Rainbow’s back as he laughed. Determination placed itself upon Rainbow’s face as Marshall placed Scootaloo in a seemingly randomly appearing pocket on his flank. Rainbow stared up at the giant pony, it was crazy, he was twenty times her own length, but somehow, she knew that he had left himself vulnerable, she just didn’t know how and she had to find out. He readied himself by taking to the air, Rainbow Dash soon followed his massive self.
They hovered in the air for what seemed like minutes, or even hours, but was actually just a few seconds. Marshall charged towards Rainbow Dash, she tried to fly off towards the side to dodge, but Marshall being the massive shell that he now was, she didn’t get away fast enough to dodge his massive swing arm. She got lunged through the air, but she was able to stop herself from spinning out of control and crashing just in time for Marshall to charge another attack Rainbow quickly readied herself for the impact as she started to charge towards him as well. Their muzzles touched and time seemed to stop, she saw his eyes in front of her, they looked empty, they held some sort of secret inside them, and then the crash came.
They smashed into each other with incredibly force, the observers, namely Twilight Sparkle, couldn’t see what had happened since a huge flash had appeared at the time of impact. As soon as the flashes faded, Twilight could see a faint movement on the ground. They had crashed into the ground, Twilight hadn’t noticed since the flash had also come with an explosion that almost completely deafened her. Twilight blinked her eyes, trying to think through what she had just seen, and then it came to her. In front of her laid the two fighters, they were completely awake, but both of them seemed incredibly shocked about something, Twilight assumed that they were shocked about the flash itself. What baffled Twilight the most though, wasn’t the explosion, or the flash, no, it was that the two ponies in front of her seemed completely unharmed, they didn’t even have a single scratch on their entire bodies, it surprised Twilight to no extent. But somehow, it also made her smile.
Twilight’s thought stopped as Rainbow jumped out of the ground and ran over to Twilight at an incredible speed. Rainbow whispered something to Twilight, who quickly understood what the pegasus had said. Rainbow then charged right at the giant pony again. Twilight blinked once more, she tried to comprehend what Rainbow had just said, and then the words echoed in her mind.
Save Scootaloo, I will distract him for you.
Twilight’s demeanor quickly turned into something determined as she flared her horn with magic and teleported. She appeared on the giant pony’s backside, the whole pony had suddenly stood up. Twilight looked for the pocket she had seen Marshall put Scootaloo inside. She found it with almost no effort, but it scared her. It didn’t seem natural, not that anything with this pony seemed natural anyways. She jumped into the pocket, and what she saw, it really surprised her. She had expected it to be a weird pony hide pocket, or something similar. But it was more than that, it was like a cave. It looked like somepony had cast an extension spell on this pocket alone. As she looked around, she couldn’t find Scootaloo anywhere in her vicinity. Now she really started to get scared. This wasn’t any ordinary bag or pocket, not including the fact that it was huge. It looked like a cave with frostbite. It was grey, filled with stalagmites and stalactites, they almost filled the entire cave floor. It was weird, there seemed to be a predetermined way that she was supposed to take. The road in front of her seemed to lead further into the cave-like pocket. She gulped and nodded. Now fully determined to face whatever was in front of her, just to save the little orange filly from captivity.
At the time, Rainbow fought against the giant pony, they had almost made a silent agreement not to make a similar attack as before. It had destroyed the plans of both of them. Rainbow had just knocked him away from her as she charged again. She enveloped herself in ice as she charged towards his abdomen. Then she felt it, even though her entire body was encased in ice, including her wings and everything. She could still move, she didn’t know how to react, so she did the only thing she could think of as she steered towards Marshall’s stomach. She flapped her wings as they were still encased in ice, it was odd, it seemed tougher to flap them, but they seemed to carry a larger strength behind them, simply because they were enforced by ice. As she sped up, Marshall started to laugh, in the same evil way that he had done before. Rainbow obviously ignored this.
Rainbow made contact with Marshall’s chest using her ice spike, and then it happened, she was flung away. It was almost as if his entire chest was made out of rubber, and it startled Rainbow as she crashed into the ground. “Do you want to know? You do, don’t you? How did I become this big? That’s an easy question. You must have noticed my minions that I sent to town, yes? Good, so you did, anyway, those minions have other uses than cannon fodder, you see. I am able to absorb them from a distance, it’s something I learned a while back. I am not even using all my power in this form and you are barely keeping up with me, how does that feel? I imagine it can’t feel all that well. Imagine though, all that power in this huge body, remember though, I have more minions still inside the town, attacking your friends. I am not stupid, I don’t absorb all of them, that would be stupid. I can do even more than that though, just look at this.” He said as his entire body started to rumble. Rainbow could see as his body shrank down to his old side. But something was different, his veins were more visible than before, and then Rainbow’s eyes were filled with realization as she understood what had happened. “Ah, so you do understand what has happened, good for you. Yes, I just compacted my old strength into a smaller body. I am faster, stronger and a lot more agile than before, you have no chance anymore. Before you ask, don’t worry about your little friends, not even the purple unicorn. They may be inside the pocket, but don’t worry, they weren’t crushed. Lots of things aren’t what they seem, I can tell you that. Oh, so you didn’t realize that I knew? Of course I knew, felt her stand on me, I just don’t care. She won’t get out of there with her life intact, that much is certain, I have taken certain precautions to make sure that she can’t escape from there, unless certain requirements are met, so to speak. Now, let’s get back to our delightful little fight, shall we?” He said with a smirk. Rainbow didn’t like his attitude, but that could only be natural, he wasn’t the nicest of ponies, everypony could see that at a first glance.
Marshall looked shaky and on the brink of exploding as he stepped forward, it couldn’t be good to store too much power in a body that couldn’t handle it. He charged at Rainbow, but that was all she got to see before she was thrown through the woods. She crashed straight into a tree, but she soon got to her feet again. She couldn’t move, she was stunned, he was faster than her eyes could handle. He laughed like a maniac as he slowly and mockingly walked towards her. And then, he disappeared from Rainbow’s view, all she could see was a pink flash as Marshall disappeared. “You don’t touch our Dashie!” Rainbow immediately recognised the voice, it was Pinkie, what on Equestria was Pinkie doing here. Suddenly, Applejack appeared in front of Rainbow Dash and spoke,
“Rainbow? You okay?” Rainbow couldn’t say anything, she was still too surprised that they were here. Rainbow opened her mouth to speak, but Applejack broke her off, “don’t say anything, I know what you want to say. Half of them, alright, more than half of them just suddenly fell together and stopped moving making the other’s incredibly confused. That left them all in a very vulnerable spot, so almost all of us took the chance to knock them out, and surprisingly enough, it worked with a buck to the stomach. So no, we didn’t come here just to help you, we came here because we finished. Now, I need you to rest up, I know you are tired, I can see it on you. So stand here and rest till we can no longer stand, which probably won’t be long.” And then, Applejack ran off towards Pinkie. Rainbow didn’t quite understand what was going on, she simply stood there for a couple of seconds as she looked to the air, she saw Cloud Kicker and the others flying over the forest and it confirmed everything Applejack had just said.
All of the help squad, or whatever she was supposed to call them, had come to help her out. She didn’t want that, in that case, where was Luna? She was probably the only one who had got orders not to interject, and knowing her, Rainbow knew she wouldn’t unless everything went to Tartarus. The bushes next to ehr started to rustle as the colt she had seen over the last days just too many times appeared before her, Colt Train. “Rainbow Dash, you’re okay, good, I’m happy. I know you’re worried about your friends, that’s natural. I can’t really help when it comes to the fighting part, but know this, I will do all in my power to get the girls out of there as fast as possible if things go to Tartarus, trust me on that.” Rainbow nodded slowly and he was off.
Rainbow Dash blinked, what had just happened? Rainbow was still unable to comprehend what was going on as she stood there. She started to think over what had just happened in under almost just a minute and then she understood. They had asked her to stay out of it, how could she possibly do that? She walked towards the locations she had seen everypony walking towards and it opened up to a small grove. What she saw hurt her heart. All the ponies were running at Marshall, but without any resemblance of difficulty, he just knocked them away like flies every time they came close enough. Rainbow’s eye twitched as she looked at the scene. She didn’t know what she was feeling, it couldn’t be anger, it could never be, she was unable to feel anger, but what was that before then? When she yelled at Marshall about Scootaloo, what was that feeling, hate maybe? That could be possible, right? It made a lot more sense than anger, since she was unable to feel that anymore. Her thought process was interrupted as a huge red stallion was knocked into the tree right to her side. It was Big Mac, she could see massive scarrings appearing on his body as he rose again and charged. It really hurt her heart to see the scene in front of her.
She pumped energy throughout her body as she slowly felt ice enveloping her, she still hadn’t figured out why she could move with it on, but it didn’t bother her, she just wanted to be able to fight. With the ice around her, she felt a relief on her scars, she looked at them with a judging eye and then she saw it, somehow, the ice was healing her at an incredible rate. She laughed silently to herself as she waited for her wounds to quickly heal, and as soon as her wounds were healed, she felt a lot better.
She started to back off into the woods again to take speed. She jumped off the ground and flapped her wings. She soared through the twigs of the forest at immense speeds, she put all her might into it as she quickly felt a cone forming in front of her. It became bigger and bigger as she neared Marshall, he looked at her as she flew towards him, he gulped as she exploded just in front of him.
Twilight started to get annoyed, the cave seemed to go on forever, it never seemed to stop. Around every turn she made there seemed to be exactly the same room she had been in before and it was really starting to annoy her to no end. She stopped as she felt something. She then started the ground to shake uncontrollably as she was flung into a nearby wall completely unexpectedly. She had not been prepared for what seemed like an earthquake. She expected that it was Rainbow Dash and Marshall colliding with each other, but that made her think, why hasn't that happened earlier if that was the case? She expected to be completely knocked out when she crashed into the wall, but that didn’t happen, she opened her eyes and found herself in a dark corridor. It wasn’t dark as in no light, but in the way that it was painted black. There was plenty of light in the corridor, it just didn’t look that way, it looked dark, but it wasn’t. She could see her hooves in front of her as she slowly nodded to herself. She raised a hoof to go forward and it worked pretty easily. She started to trot in a casual pace. The dark corridor looked like it had an ending, but it still seemed far away, but it grew closer by the second, it made her feel enthusiastic about the trek finally ending. Twilight slowed down as she neared the end of the corridor as she saw what was placed in front of her, it was a completely black door. Twilight took a large breath and opened it with her magic. She was immediately overtaken by the insane amounts of light emanating from the room. She held a hoof in front of her eyes to get a look of the room, within a short amount of time, her eyes adapted themselves to the light and she could see the room in it’s entirety.
It was a pretty small room, which quite surprised Twilight, she had expected it to be huge to need the amount of light that was located in the room itself. The room itself was pretty uninteresting, as it was completely colored white, Twilight could make out the walls, but it was till creepy that almost everything was completely white. The only things in the room standing out was a wooden table standing in the middle with two chairs next to it. On one of them sat a mare, she had a slight yellow tint to her coat and a grassy green mane. She had a horn adoring her forehead, the mare sat there, with a cup of tea in her magical aura as she stared at Twilight with bored eyes. Twilight caught a glimpse of her eyes color, they were the same red color the sun had at sundown. Twilight thought they looked beautiful, but she shook her head in annoyance, she wouldn’t let herself get distracted. Twilight stepped towards the unicorn who made a gentle laugh as she stood up from her chair. “Welcome Twilight Sparkle, to my humble abode. I am here to stop you from reaching the orange little filly. And trust me, you have no chan—” She was interrupted as Twilight’s horn tore through her chest. The mare gasped as Twilight retracted her horn, her face was incredibly harsh as she looked down at the mare in front of her. “How...”
Twilight stepped towards the next door as she spoke. “When it comes to saving my friends, ponies like you should not stand in my way, especially not it you’re this weak. Now go, heal yourself, I didn’t kill you, I wouldn’t do that, you can still save yourself, you have about one hour, twenty three minutes and about forty seconds before you bleed out, I would recommend mending yourself. I bet you’re not an invalid so it should be pretty easy.” Twilight said with a huff as she went through the door.
The mare crawled up the table as she fell over the table and laughed to herself. “Oh Sparkle, if that’s all you can do, may Celestia save your poor little soul.” She said as her body started to flicker like a hologram disappearing. “She destroyed a basic and weak clone, I wonder how she will do against the real me.” She made the weirdest of laughs as her entire body became stardust and disappeared.
As Twilight closed the door behind her, she swore she could hear something from the other side, but she ignored it as she found herself in yet another corridor, this one was a lot smaller than the last one, shorter as well. She quickly arrived at the next door and opened it. In front of her was yet another white room with a table in the middle and the exact same unicorn sat there with a smug grin on her face. Twilight was too angry to care, she simply grabbed the mare with her magic, taking her with surprise, and flung her into the wall, she fell unconscious immediately. Twilight started to walk towards the next door yet again, it was already getting tiring to do that motion more than once. And then, she heard a sound from behind her, she immediately turned towards the source and found herself looking at the body of the unicorn as her body shimmered away.
At that moment, Twilight understood what was going on. The mare was only using mirrors of herself to see what Twilight was capable of, and it annoyed her to no end. Twilight started galloping towards the next door and shouted out as she entered. “Show yourself, you petty mare! Using cheap tricks like that! Face me like a mare and you will see for yourself just who you have to deal with!” Twilight then stared at what she knew was yet another mirror clone. It smiled as it started to shimmer and disappeared, only to be replaced by the same pony once more, but this one felt more real.
The mare laughed, “you think you have a chance? You really do, don’t you? Let me show you why you don’t!” The mare screeched as fangs appeared in her mouth. “Not too shabby if I do say so myself. I just made it so that this is the last room, not that it matters, you won’t get past me, I have more power than ten normal ponies have combined.” The motion of this was hilarious to Twilight as she started to laugh out loudly. “Stop it! I command you to stop! What is so funny about this!?” Twilight cleared her eyes with a hoof as she stood up, still snickering a bit to herself.
Twilight giggled as she spoke out, “I don’t have a chance? Trying turning that on you. You probably know who I am, from what I heard, you know my name, so that leads me to believe that you know I am Celestia’s personal student, am I right on this point?” The mare slowly nodded. “Ok, that’s pretty good for you, isn’t it? But what I bet you didn’t know, is that fact that I have anti-vampony magic. Oh, what’s with the scared face, you didn’t expect it? Well, too bad.” Twilight finished with another giggle as she flared her horn. The other mare seemed completely distraught as she was unable to move. Twilight’s horn started emanating clear yellow light, the other mare gulped, she knew what was coming for her. The magic gathered together in a ball that shot at the mare with incredible speed.
The mare felt something as the ball enveloped her, she felt relieved in some way, the next thing she knew, she laid splayed on the ground, unable to move. Twilight walked towards her with a happy smile adorning her face. “You know, it’s a good thing that you are a vampony, all I did was stun you and release you from your masters grip. So, I would advise you to do whatever you want as soon as the spell lifts. I’m a lot more merciful than you would ever be in your previous state. I can’t cure you of the vampirism, if I could, there would be no vamponies. You should feel lucky for surviving, I doubt your master will get the same treatment. He’s done everything by free will, the lot of you have been mind controlled by him, that’s why you are not to blame. Now, I have a filly to rescue.” Twilight finished as she left the mare there, lying on the ground. Twilight hadn't even bothered to learn her name, since it would have been completely useless information.
Twilight opened her eyes, she found herself in the forest she had been in before she went inside the weird pocket thing. She saw two ponies in front of her. It was Rainbow Dash, who was wearing a small smile as she looked at Twilight. The other was Marshall, who looked incredibly angry and confused at Twilight. “How!? How did you defeat my guard? What are you?” He shook his head and then he laughed. “Oh, but silly me, of course you would beat her, she wasn’t that strong to begin with, though, I did hope she could handle the likes of you! This just plays into my plan perfectly though. Do you have any idea what I plan to do? You don’t? How wonderful, just watch and learn.” He laughed like a maniac, confusing the two other ponies.
He showed his fangs, they were massive things. He quickly dragged a fang though one of his forehoof, making him bleed. he swatted his hoof in such a way that blood flew straight into the open mouth of Scootaloo, she almost choked on it. He laughed as he understood that she had succeeded. Rainbow and Twilight just looked at him with confusion. This surprised him to no extent. “Wait, you have no idea what I just did, do you? Of course you don’t. I just made Scootaloo swallow vampony blood. Do any of you know what that means?” The two of them shook their heads. “Oh, that is just priceless, isn’t it? She never told you, I find that incredibly stupid of her. Clover has never been the best mentor. Though, it is pretty hard to figure out. You may have noticed how vampony blood coagulates pretty quickly, am I right on this point?” Twilight nodded and Rainbow had no idea what he was talking about. “It means when blood becomes solid so to speak. Anyway, vampony coagulate so quickly is to protect the foundation of vampony-ism, in a way. You see, by the drinkage of uncoagulated vampony blood, your body transforms. You become a vampony of the same skill and rank as the vampony whose blood you just drank. What is even more funny is the link the two get. You see, if I were to become an Omega now, your little friend there would also be one. And yes, I am in fact, turning you little orange friend into a vampony. She won’t be under my control, but she will still be a vampony. It’s so sad when fillies have to grow up fast. Forced vampirism like this often lead to the drinker of the blood getting a massive growth spurt, and as such, she will grow at immense rates within the next, shall we say, hour or so?” He then laughed.
Rainbow and Twilight were completely mortified at the thought. Twilight didn’t know what to do, she just glanced at Rainbow. She could see Rainbow’s face malforming almost as her eyes almost started to glow darkness. Twilight then understood what was happening. Rainbow just realised that she really hates this guy and she’s gonna bring her hate all over him. What happened next surprised Twilight. Rainbow’s body started to glow in a red aura as Rainbow’s body grew to twice her normal size, it scared Twilight.
Rainbow stepped towards Marshall, who now understood his mistake. Rainbow’s eye twitched as she grabbed him around the waist in less than seconds.She took to the air and disappeared from Twilight’s view in such a short time that Twilight was barely even able to react. Twilight then saw something in the air. It was coming towards the ground. And then, there was an explosion.
Twilight flew into a tree. When she opened her eyes, she saw a huge crater in front of her. Her jaw fell, she didn’t understand, what was going on? She then saw Rainbow walking towards her slowly, the glow in her eyes gone, and her size had shrunk to it’s normal size. She walked up to Twilight and spoke in the most relieved voice Twilight had ever heard.
“It’s over.”