[Mechanist's Flutter Part 3.2]
The energy coursing through her cold metallic powercore was incapable of feeling emotion, yet Gear still cared for her friends as though she had a warm beating heart. Being with Dash made her forget about her mechanical nature, she felt like a true mare. She even forgot about her capabilities of strength and speed, and felt truly happy. After the princesses left last night Gear followed Dash who kept veering to the side while she flew. Gear knew that Dash was hurt from being attacked by that other armored, or maybe mechanical, pony. She decided it would be best to stay with her friend, just in case she was badly hurt. She cared for Dash almost as much as Fluttershy would, being careful to gently wrap the bandage around Dash's midsection and her left wing. From what she could figure, Dash took on the full force of a ramming attack, and by folding her wing closed against her side, she used it as a shield reducing the impact of the attack. Gear figured that Dash would be able to fly almost full force by morning.
Her prognosis was correct, the wing had recovered by the time Gear woke her up. It took a couple of tries but finally Dash groggily opened her eyes and let out a yawn, "Mornin', Gear."
Gear smiled, "Good morning, Dash."
"Hey, thanks for patchin' me up."
"You're welcome."
Gear unwrapped the bandages from around Dash's midsection, being careful not to pull them tighter on accident. As soon as the bandages were off Dash spread her wings, both were quick to open for her to stretch. Gear watched Dash's face carefully to look for any hidden twinges of pain. Either Dash had practice hiding her pain or there wasn't a sore thing on her.
"How do you feel?", Gear asked.
"As good as I'll ever be.", Dash lifted into the air and stretched again.
The sun was rising, rays of light shone through holes in the cloud cover. The two stepped out the front door to Dash's cloud home, then took to the air. They aimed to land at the library quickly, both flying at a high rate of speed. Gear looked down at the ground as she flew along but a mere glance at the Everfree forest brought her to a stop, a worried look on her face as she gazed on. It didn't take long for Dash to realize she had stopped, and went back to her.
"Hey Gear, what's...", Dash looked where Gear was looking.
The two were stunned, there were patches of darkness roaming around the forest.
-----
Twilight woke up laying on the floor, she lifted her head and the book she'd fallen asleep in was stuck to her face. It fell off after a moment and she eyed the coffee that Spike gave her last night, "Spike? Did you give me decaf last night?"
Spike answered from the kitchen, "Ummm..."
"SPIKE!"
The little dragon walked in with some coffee, "You really don't think that well after being awake for two whole days."
"Fine, it's not like I can go back and-- "
"No, Twilight, no more time-travel experiments! You promised!"
"But, this time I could be sure it's only two days!"
"TWILIGHT!"
"Okay, you're right. I don't need to run from Pinkamena Rarity, the crazy fashionista again."
Spike handed the real coffee to Twilight, "Now you're thinking."
A knock came to the library door and Twilight downed her coffee in one big gulp, "That should be the others. Could you let them in?"
Spike opened the door and Applejack walked in, "Uh, Twi. We got a bit of a problem..."
"What?"
"Ah was headin' down th' path from th' farmhouse and saw that cloaked pony from last night."
"What did she do?"
"She uprooted half th' orchard."
"She did WHAT?"
"She proved it, too. Took to th' air and rammed three more trees clear outta the ground, includin' one of the Zap Apple trees. Twi, ah hope you got a plan, this's personal now."
Twilight saw Rarity wander in, somewhat off-balance, "Rarity? What happened?"
Instantly Rarity wraps her front legs around Twilight, "Oh, Twilight! It was the Worst. Possible. THING!"
She summoned her fainting couch and fell onto it. It looked like it had just barely survived the tag-team destructive efforts of the Cutie Mark Crusaders Chainsaw Jugglers, a swarm of Parasprites, and a troupe of Ballerina Buffalo.
Twilight asked, "Wow, It looks awful, but it's just a couch."
"Oh NO! This is only the beginning! That cloaked Ruffian appeared in the Boutique, spread her armored wings and... and...", Tears welled up in her eyes, "Started shredding and cutting every single design with rainbow colored blades! The Horror!"
"Rainbow colored blades?", Applejack asked.
"Yes! This is the greatest atrocity against Fashion to Date! There must be retribution! It. Is. ON!"
A gray flat-maned pony wandered in, Twilight looked at her, What's Inky doing here?
Pinkie shook the soot off of her, "That meanie cloaked pony broke the knobs and dials on all the ovens and stoves, and now all the cupcakes come out burnt, what kind of pony wants burnt cupcakes?"
Both Gear and Dash landed outside and wandered in. The other four mares looked at Dash.
"Uhm...Are we early?" Gear asked.
"RD, you wouldn't happen ta have some o'that armor like Fluttershy there, would ya?", AJ asked.
Dash gave her a curious look, "Why would I need armor?"
"You really don't wanna lie ta me today..."
Gear looked at AJ, "She doesn't have any armor, Applejack."
"Yeah, I'm the fastest Pegasus in all Equestria, I wouldn't be caught dead in any kind of armor, it'd slow me down."
Rainbow's voice kept going without her, "And don't get any ideas, nopony is taking credit for -MY- work!"
Applejack looked at her, "Cute trick..."
The window near Twilight's bed broke, the six ponies looked up and saw the cloaked pony standing on the higher ledge, "Like I said, -NOPONY- is taking -ANY- credit for -MY- work!"
Dash looked at the cloaked pony, "Why would I wanna destroy the things my friends like!"
"Oh this is great, they're tryin' to blame you. The elements of harmony need to be together for this, can't say they are right now."
"An' what do ya mean by that!"
The cloaked one gave a little snicker, "You tell me, idn't the purple one there supposed to be the obsessive one?", she changed her tone to mock the farmpony, "Ah wanna know why sweet li'l fluttashy is wearin' armah!", She broke out laughing.
"Why I oughta hogtie you!", AJ snapped.
"Oh, just me? Since you tied up Dashie over there for keeping her promise, maybe you oughta tie up the little party pony there. She saw something off about Fluttershy and promised not to tell."
Twilight looked at Pinkie, "Pinkie?"
"Not tellin'.", Pinkie shrugged, cupcake in hoof.
AJ managed to get a rope around the cloaked pony, "Yer comin' down here and were havin' a little talk!"
She pulled with all her might and the cloaked pony didn't budge, "What in tarnation!?"
The cloaked pony laughed, "Oh woe is me, I've been lassoed."
Two metal wings spread from the pony each with seven metal blades, each blade one color of the rainbow. The rope and the cloak fell free of the Pegasus, revealing her body to be similar to Gear. Dash looked at the Machination on the upper floor, with a look of disbelief on her face.
"You should see the awesome look on your face! Little Dashie is worried!"
Rarity couldn't believe her eyes either, "W-w-w-wait! -TWO- Rainbow Dash?!"
The mechanical Dash folded her wings and leaned forward, "Not Dash, Rainbow Blade."
Applejack looked at Rainbow Blade, "Yer wearing armor like Fluttershy?!"
"Armor? HAH! You're lookin' at my mechanical body, this is me! Just like your little 'Fluttershy' there."
Applejack looked at Gear, "Fluttershy?"
Gear backed down, "I..."
"Is that really you?"
Twilight and Rarity both closed in on Applejack, "That's our Fluttershy, Applejack. You see how different Rainbow Blade is from Rainbow Dash..."
Gear spoke up, "No Twilight, I'm not Fluttershy."
Blade noticed the sudden halt of Rarity, Twilight, and Applejack, "Well, looks like there's nothing left to do but tell you all that Arcana Stream is waiting for you. Don't keep her waiting!"
Rainbow Blade took off through a second window taking special care to destroy all of the books within her reach with a fly-by cut.
-----
Gear was looking Applejack right in her eyes, afraid of what horrors awaited her for pretending to be Fluttershy. Pinkie walked between the tense stare and looked at Applejack, "Applejack, we should listen to her story..."
Applejack's voice roared out, "WHERE'S FLUTTERSHY?!"
Gear tried to talk, "I-I d-don't know!"
Twilight realized that Applejack was about to try and pin down the imposter Fluttershy, like she did those rogue pegasi that took Apple Bloom. Rarity, Spike, and Pinkie realized that they needed to act and act now. Twilight and Rarity grabbed onto Applejack with the combined efforts of both their physical strength and the pull of their magic, Pinkie quickly tied herself to her party cannon and tilted it on its side before grabbing on. Spike even grabbed on, everypony still couldn't hold back the farmer as she slowly advanced towards Gear, "Like Hay you don't!"
Dash snapped out of her little shock, "Wha?"
Twilight kept pulling with all her might, "Rainbow Dash! Help!"
Dash snapped to and realized what was going on, "Hey Applejack, simmer down!"
Dash stood beside Gear as Applejack kept coming closer, "You had to've been in on this! Where's Fluttershy!"
"What makes you think I know where she went? I've been flying all over looking for her with Gear!"
Twilight was starting to get tired, "And why didn't you tell us?"
Gear looked at Applejack square in the eyes, "I didn't want to worry anypony. I wanted to find her and bring her home..."
Applejack had stopped moving closer since her fury melted into a mix of anger and sadness, "You could've told us! We all could've searched together!"
Relaxing a little Rarity added, "Of course, Fluttershy is our friend, we would search throughout all Equestria to be certain that she is safe."
Twilight was glad to not be holding back an angry farmpony anymore, "As a matter of a fact, we need to start searching for the real Fluttershy, we'll need to split up and start searching all over Ponyville"
Gear thought for a moment, "Twilight, do you remember what Zecora said about who she saw?"
Twilight thought a moment, "The unicorn I'll assume is Arcana Stream, and two cloaked ponies."
"One she could see had Metal hooves."
Dash grumbled, "Rainbow -Blade- I bet..."
"The other one over her back was attracting cardinals. I haven't seen any of the cardinals at Fluttershy's cottage whenever I've been feeding the animals in her abscence."
The others thought for a moment, Dash snapped to it immediately, "Arcana Stream has her...doesn't she..."
Gear nods, "That would be my guess."
Rarity looks at Applejack then at Gear, "I assume that if Rainbow Dash's double has a different name, you would too?"
Gear nods and smiles, "I'm FlutterGear, call me Gear for short."
AJ was still suspicious, "Yer not leadin' us into a trap are ya?"
"I'm not working for anypony, I don't even know how I got here."
Twilight looked at AJ, "Applejack, we don't have any choice but to trust her, I mean if Rainbow Dash, our most loyal friend trusts her, why not us?"
"Yer right, Twi. Gear was it?"
Gear nods, "Yes"
"You were tryin' to make amends for uprootin' Apple Bloom's buckin' tree by helpin' buck apples. I realize now how simple and true a gesture that was, almost as kind as 'Shy. And, ah suppose that if RD can trust ya, so can I."
"Thank You, Applejack."
Applejack looks at Rainbow Dash, "Rainbow Dash, ah owe ya an apology for the other night, I was too busy wantin' to know the truth that ah tied up one of my best friends. Ah'm sorry, ah'm sorry ah tied you up, and ah'm sorry ah accused you of not bein' loyal... when ya were bein' loyal to a friend all along."
Dash crossed her front legs, "That's better."
Gear looked at her, "Dash..."
Dash scratched the back of her head, "I mean... Thanks Applejack."
Twilight grinned a moment, "Now that we have some idea of who you are, I think some questions have been answered. The only questions left are who this Arcana Stream unicorn is, where she is, and what she intends to do with Fluttershy."
Gear nodded, "I think she's in the Everfree forest, there's something all of you need to see..."
-----
The ponies had crowded onto the balcony where Twilight had set up her Telescope. They could see that ponies all over Ponyville had climbed onto their roofs and were looking towards the Everfree Forest worried about what this could mean. Twilight carefully marked down the exact orientation of her telescope before using it to look into a patch of darkness. The patches of darkness had not spread or moved much since Gear and Dash saw them.
"Whaddya see, Twi?", Applejack asked.
Twilight began to carefully analyze what was going on inside this patch. The plantlife was visibly fading away as though they had turned to ash in the wind. Reducing the amount of zoom she watched as some of the fauna fled from the influence, all the while small blotches of black formed on their bodies. What really made her heart pause was the sight of two birds caught on a vine, a sparrow and a cardinal. The sparrow frantically flapped its wings trying to escape but quickly slowed down, then hung limp before dissolving like the plants. The cardinal was covered in the black growth but didn't stop trying to break free, it finally escaped as a completely different creature. She slowly turned to her friends, while her mind fought to ignore what she just witnessed. "It looks like all the animals in the forest are fleeing from the darkness, for a very good reason. The shadow magic that's roving the forest is dangerous."
"And just how dangerous is it?" Rarity asked.
"Looking into one of these patches I just saw two birds. I really can't decide which of the two were worse off."
Gear looked at Twilight curiously, "What do you mean?"
Twilight described what she saw, "There were two birds caught on a vine, the darkness absorbed one, and transformed the other one. Knowing those patches could do either of those things to us, we would need somepony above us watching for shifts in the dark areas."
Dash Spread her wings, "I'll--"
A voice from above interrupted her, "There you are."
Dash recognized it immediately, and looked up to see Spitfire with some other members of the Wonderbolts. Spitfire landed on the balcony and approached Dash, "Some of the others are saying that you broke into the museum back in Canterlot."
"What? I haven't been to Canterlot since Hearth's Warming Eve."
Twilight thought and asked, "When was this?"
Spitfire looked at her, "About an hour and a half ago."
Twilight ran some calculations in her head, "Even for Rainbow Dash it would take about an hour to get to Canterlot, and another to return to Ponyville. Though she's been with us for the last 20 minutes."
Gear looked at Spitfire, "And the rest of the time I've been with her."
Spitfire had taken a look at Gear's body, "I kinda tought so, she'd need more time to ditch that armor kinda like yours."
Dash crossed her front legs, "Oh great, Rainbow Blade."
Pinkie just ran through everything that Rainbow Blade had done just this morning, "Great we've got a second Rainbow making Dashie look like a villian, and there's still time for breakfast."
Spitfire looked at Dash, "Rainbow Blade, one of your fans?"
Dash crossed her front legs, "Even if she were I'd want to put a stop to her."
Spitfire looked at the three other Wonderbolts that had accompanied her, "You go on ahead and head back to base, I'll want to talk with Rainbow Dash."
Soarin looked at her, "One of us has to stay with you."
She grinned, "Since you've been around here, why don't you stick around."
Soarin nodded at her then looked at the two others, "Go on, report to base."
The other two flew off and Spitfire took a closer look at Dash, "I know that wasn't you, you don't have wings like Rainbow Blade. That'd be impossible for any normal Pegasus to have."
Dash looked at her curiously, "What'dya mean?"
"The blades of her wings seperated, when she made her escape from the Museum she used them to injure some of the wonderbolts that were guarding that tome."
Gear twitched, "Tome?"
Twilight's pupils shrank in horror, "Would you happen to know which tome was stolen? Something penned by Starswirl the Bearded?"
"That's the one."
Gear shuddered, "It couldn't be..."
Spitfire, Dash, and the others looked at Gear, Applejack asked, "D'ya know somethin' we don't, Gear?"
"I had this dream the other night, me and Dash defeated a Black Dragon that stole the Tome of Summoning. After we got it back Celestia and Luna sent us to stop Arcana Stream..."
Dash's eyes widened, "Wait! You had the same dream?!"
Gear nodded, "I flew through a patch of darkness like those and something happened before I woke up."
Dash thought back as hard as she could, she really didn't keep track of any dreams that didn't involve her becoming a Wonderbolt, "Wait... You vanished and I ran into her, beat her and... that's it."
Gear realized that the dragon used magic to activate the spell within the tome, maybe Arcana Stream couldn't since she wouldn't have as much magic.
Soarin got a surprised look on his face, and Pinkie noticed it, "Hey, what's with that look?"
Spitfire looked where Soarin was looking, "What in..."
The others looked and saw a column of energy rising from the old castle. Little arcs of dark energy reached out and moved towards Ponyville, two of them heading for the ponies on the balcony.
Twilight put up a barrier and the arcs dispersed, however several others had combed over the town hitting and draining the Unicorns that were either watching or minding their own business. Gear looked towards Canterlot as several arcs were dissipated against a golden magic barrier. One after another the local unicorns fell over moaning from the shock.
Applejack commented, "What in all Equestria was that?!"
Twilight thought for a moment, "If memory serves...Spike! Find that book on magic redirection!"
Spike opened the hatch to the Balcony holding a book, "This one?"
Twilight looked at the page he had opened it to and compared it to what happened, "A mass Drain spell, it breaks a unicorns connection to the magic reserves temporarily, transferring them to the caster. It affects every unicorn in the target region, unicorns of... all types..."
Pinkie and Rarity both siezed up.
Pinkie jumped and shouted, "PUMPKIN!"
Rarity jumped at the same time, "Sweetie Belle!"
The two were gone in an instant and Twilight looked at the others, "We've gotta see how many have been affected!"
With that the remaining six ponies left.
-----
Rainbow Blade watched as Arcana Stream was absorbing the mana she needed, with this absorption she had borrowed the knowledge of the other unicorns and went into what she would call an overdrive. Her horn glowed a deep purple as the pages of the tome tore free from their binding and levitated in front of her, she began to read in her mind and slowly the words on the pages started to glow. Rainbow Blade wandered out of the room, and to the lower levels of the ruin.
The torches in the dungeon turned blue from the immense amount of mana that was being focused, calmly Rainbow Blade wandered to an unlit cell, "It's not worth trying it, I know you're in there."
Nothing responded.
"It's me... Blade..."
Some hooves shuffled on the stone floor.
"I'm not here to do that either. She's started the ritual, and your friends are about to work their way here."
Finally a voice replied, "W-will...will she be...with them?"
"Yeah..."