One Dash, Two Dash, Red Dash, Blue Dash
Rainbow Dash tore through the skies over Baltimare. Behind her, smoke rose from an old warehouse she had been fighting in, but she had set that issue aside for the moment.
Catching the pony responsible was higher on her list of priorities.
“You just can’t allow me to retake that which is mine, can you, Supermare?” The Great and Powerful Trixie shouted from an oncoming rooftop.
“When you put ponies’ lives in danger, Trixie, we are going to be in conflict.” Rainbow Dash stopped in front of the deranged showmare, folding her forelegs and glaring down at her. “You care only about yourself, and you don’t care if anypony gets hurt.”
“If they do then it’s their fault that they got in my way.” Trixie’s horn shimmered. “You could have stayed out of this, but no, you had to show up and ruin everything I had worked so hard to create!”
“Staging a fire just so you could appear heroic putting it out? You really need to focus, Trixie.” Trixie growled and fired a blast of magic, but Rainbow easily evaded and dove towards Trixie. Trixie tried to attack again, but Rainbow fired a short blast of heat vision and knocked the unicorn off the building. Rainbow considered diving after and saving Trixie, but the unicorn managed to teleport to a second building.
“So you have your superpowers,” Trixie scoffed. “They are nothing compared to my magic.”
“Says the unicorn that can’t even lift a good sized cart with her magic.” Rainbow Dash dodged another blast from the enraged Trixie. “Look, why don’t you just give up and turn yourself in, and I can get back to saving ponies. I think we’d all be happier.”
“No, I will never surrender to the likes of you!” Trixie’s horn glowed again. “You may be able to dodge most of my spells, but I assure you that you will suffer greatly with this!” Trixie released her spell, a white wave of energy rushing towards Rainbow Dash. The Pegasus tried to dodge, but the wave was just too large and she found herself slammed against another building. A few chunks of masonry broke loose and collapsed on her, pinning her to the ground.
Okay, weird spell, but I don’t think it did anything. Rainbow Dash shuffled her hooves around and pushed up, attempting to throw the rubble off her back. She strained for a few moments before collapsing, more rubble being added to the pile.
“... Okay, this is bad. My powers aren’t working properly.” Rainbow Dash pushed up again, but to no avail. “Maybe I should ask Twilight to make some telekinetic thingy just in case things like this happen.”
“Maybe you just need to push yourself harder.” Rainbow heard a voice that sounded a lot like herself say. She looked up and saw, sitting on a fallen beam, a red version of herself in a red bodysuit.
“Uh... where’d you come from?”
“If my theory is correct,” a second voice said, and Rainbow saw a navy blue Pegasus in a blue suit land next to her other doppelganger. “Trixie’s spell acted as a limited-range duplicator, separating us from your natural reserve of magic and giving us physical forms.”
“Uh... could you explain that with less egghead talk?”
“She means that we’re you.” the red one said before looking to the blue one. “Right?”
“Technically speaking no. I do not know the exact deviations between us, but aside from physical variances I cannot determine what sets us apart.”
“Even Twilight would know...” Rainbow Dash muttered before failing once more to remove the rubble. “Hey, can one of you give me some help here?”
“Pssh. Screw that!” said the red one, Rainbow deciding to call her Red Dash, before taking off. “I’m going to have another go at Trixie. See you losers later!” and with that Red Dash was gone. Rainbow Dash muttered a curse and looked to the other, Blue Dash.
“Okay, I’m sorry for calling you an egghead. Could you help me?”
“No.” Blue Dash prepared to leave. “Rescuing you does not gain me anything. There are more practical uses of both my intellect and strengths, and helping you does not assist either?”
“How do you know?”
“... Pardon?”
“How do you know I’m useless? I mean, you don’t know how Trixie’s spell works, so you might need me and... Red to study it further.” Blue Dash paused for a moment, mulling over what Rainbow Dash said. The other mare shrugged before raising a hoof, a small beam of blue light encircling the rubble and raising it high enough for Rainbow Dash to squeeze out.
“I have assisted in freeing you. Now I must go and subdue my counterpart so I may begin tests on our connection, if any.”
“Sure, go ahead.” Blue Dash nodded and took off, Rainbow Dash following behind. I’ve got to find a way to get my powers working again... Maybe these two might be my answer.
There was a crash up ahead and Rainbow saw Red Dash circling Trixie, an aura of power surrounding the Pegasus. Around them were the remains of several carts and buildings, blown apart by energy blasts from either of the two combatants. Blue Dash moved forward to try and intercept Red, while Rainbow Dash hung back to avoid getting hurt without her powers.
“You call that an energy blast?” Red Dash yelled at Trixie. “I could do something like that in my sleep!”
“You have no control whatsoever. I am in complete control of what I am doing.”
“Eh, who needs control? I’m still stronger than you!”
“Actually,” Blue Dash said. “You only seem to possess a limited amount of power, and upon seeing Trixie’s displays of power yours are not all that strong.”
“What?!” Red Dash turned to face Blue Dash.
“That is not to say you aren’t strong, but I would say your powers are closer to that of an average unicorn.”
“Trixie is not average!” the two Dashes ignored her.
“How would you know this, egghead?”
“I only observed the destructive capabilities of both you and the unicorn; based on the energy expenditures and the blast radius of a standard spell and one of your energy blasts, they are roughly the same.” Rainbow Dash smiled a little; Red and Blue arguing with each other had provided her with a distraction to get at Trixie, and she was now sneaking up behind the showmare with a large brick in her hooves. Before Trixie had a chance to turn around, Rainbow Dash had slammed the brick down on Trixie’s head, knocking the unicorn out cold.
Okay, now I just have to get rid of those two.
“I bet I could take you on easily!” Red Dash said, taking a fighting stance while Rainbow returned to them.
“Given your headstrong attitude and lack of any tactical insight, I highly doubt that I could be troubled by some insignificant peon such as yourself.”
“Heh, I find that hard to believe.” Rainbow Dash muttered. Both Red and Blue looked to her.
“... What did you just say?”
“I don’t think either of you guys are really that great.” Rainbow turned to Red. “You are too impulsive and careless; yeah, you chase the bad guys, but you also cause a lot of collateral damage, which might get a lot of ponies hurt and make you seem like some thug.”
“At least I get results...” growled Red Dash.
“As much as your analysis is amusing,” Blue Dash began. “There are other issues I must deal with, and since you are here together I can-”
“No, no experimenting.” Rainbow snapped. “You’re no better; you’re so wrapped up in logic that you don’t care about what’s going on around you, unless it has something to do with you. How are you supposed to protect ponies if all you care about is expanding your ‘vast’ intellect?”
“... Did you just insult my intelligence?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Both Blue and Red glared at Rainbow, auras of energy enveloping them.
“I say we deal with this... annoyance, and then we can decide where our paths will lead us.”
“Whatever you say, Egghead.” Red and Blue raised their hooves and fired their energy blasts at Rainbow Dash, both attacks connecting at the same time and sending her flying. She struggled in the air for a few moments before righting herself, but not after she clipped the top of a building, sending several chunks of masonry falling towards the ground. Rainbow raced after them and managed to knock them out of the way, slowing them down enough so that they caused no further damage.
Okay, things are getting back to normal... Rainbow Dash turned and raced back to Red and Blue Dash, the two Pegasi generally surprised that she was still flying.
“Hmm, interesting.” Blue Dash said. “It seems that your durability is still very high. I suppose that striking you with a higher concentration of power may overcome that.”
“Sure it will.” Rainbow Dash rushed forward, one hoof out to strike Red Dash. Red had little time to react before Rainbow slammed into her at full speed, the force of impact knocking the clone half way across town. As Red recovered, Blue fired a blast of energy at Rainbow, but the attack bounced harmlessly off her as she tackled her doppelganger. She struck as fast as she could, landing several hits before she was grabbed from behind by Red Dash. Rainbow allowed herself to drop, slamming Red Dash into the ground and knocking her out cold.
“This... this is impossible!” cried Blue Dash. “You shouldn’t have your powers back!”
“My guess is that you two blasting me was enough to fix whatever Trixie did.” Rainbow raced forward and grabbed Blue Dash. “And now, time to get rid of you both!” Rainbow pitched Blue to the ground, somehow managing to hit Red in the process. Both doppelgangers began to glow before exploding into a shower of light, the force of the explosion knocking Rainbow around as she tried to maintain altitude.
“Okay, that was interesting... Now to go get Trixie to jail, again.”