//------------------------------// // An honest draw // Story: Mare-Do-Well: Dark Reflections // by VampDash //------------------------------// Appleloosa, a desolate town in the middle of nowhere. None of the towns folk bothered anypony but that didn't mean they themselves were spared from Negamare's ruthless soldiers. Among the things to torment them none topped the buffaloes that plagued them day in and day out. "Papa why do the buffaloes act so mean to us?" A young colt asked his dad, a tall yellow coated earth stallion with the apple family cutiemark adorned on his flank. Braeburn looked down at his son with a smile on his face and rubbed the little colts head and then turned to look at the dark horizon hoping that for once the sun or even the moon would rise and that this whole thing was just a bad dream but to his disappointment all he saw was another dust bowl gather up which meant one thing. She was coming back. "Son get in the house now." He said, his voice deadpan and devoid of emotion, and his son complied accordingly. Just as the last door in Appleloosa closed up the full brunt of the stampede descended on the town. The buffaloes skidded to a stop, just moments before they could've crushed Braeburn's house down. He looked through them trying to see if he could find at least one among them he recognized before he heard a familiar cackle echo out from them. "Well, well, well. What is this now? Big bad Braeburn out all on his own now. This is a surprise." The familiar raspy voice of the stampedes leader made herself known. He saw her leap down from a large buffalo warrior. The mare in question had a stetson hat, just like everypony else in the town, but most of her face was covered by a red bandanna across her mouth and she wore really rugged looking clothing. At her hip were two pistols fashioned specifically for her use. But that wan't what Braeburn was focusing on. What he was looking at were her clothes, which had a familiar fur look on them. They looked like the fur that was on chief Thunderhooves. He stepped towards her, intending to start a fight, but the mare noticed this "Now now Brae don't be getting any ideas now you should know how the safety of your family means to me." The outlaw said in a mocking tone before she pointed out to Braeburn with her hoof the pegasus sniper in the nearby tower, who was overlooking his own house with a crossbow. Braeburn gritted his teeth in anger at the mare in front of him, "If you hurt mah family I swear I'll-" "Do what Brae?" The outlaw said seemingly daring him to do something to provoke her. After a few seconds passed the masked mare snorted at him "Nothing? I thought so. Now then you know the drill fill these puppies up." she pointed at the three bags in front of her, "Otherwise my boys here get a little... rambunctious. You know how it is." The outlaw said and just to prove her point the whole herd started to trample down anything in their path, the saloon, a food mart, almost everything until. "STOP OKAY I'LL DO IT!" Braeburn shouted and earned a slight chuckle from the mare in front of him. She held out the bags again and Braeburn took them from her. He went inside the nearby bank and started to fill the bags up to the brim with bits but not before he slipped a little something into the bag as well. I hope those strange folk knew what they were talking about with this. The cow pony thought to himself. He headed back out with the bags in tow and put them in front of the outlaw. "Alright I held my end I got you the bits. Now you hold your end of the bargain and let'em go." The cow-pony said in a menacing tone which provoked another small laugh from the mare. "Hold onto your panties there boy. Don't you worry I'm a mare of my word." She said before waving to the sniper who picked up his weapon and flew off towards his boss's castle. The mare took the bags from Braeburn and then stuck out her hoof for him to shake it. He did so reluctantly, "Negamare appreciates your donations sugarcube." She said and then everypony heard it. A gunshot rang out through the town as the outlaw holstered her pistol. Braeburn looked down at his wound in his gut. The blood seeping from him was coming very quickly and the pain of the bullet was excruciating. "Aw quit your belly ackin' that there wound shouldn't be fatal if yah get to the hospital but let it be a reminder." She held out her hoof to show the device he planted in on of the bags to him before crushing it underhoof, "Don't try and screwover Quickdraw." "I-I can't believe it. You're alive." The mare said to Rainbow Dash. The two had slipped into a nearby building after the cloaked mare saw Rainbow who, according to her, should be dead. That fact alone was enough to make the pegasus nearly flip out. The two mares sat inside for awhile just doing nothing and then the mare started to talk again. "I'm-I'm sorry but to see you here? Everypony around heard that she killed you." That got Rainbow's attention. She wanted to know who the buck was responsible. "Ma'am I'm sorry but I have to ask. Who was it that said I died?" She asked but before the mare could anwser she heard several voices nearby. "Guards." The mare said before she motioned Rainbow to hide behind a hidden wall. A few moments later they both heard the hooves of the guards walk by them. A few moments passed before they started to walk away when. crack. The mystery mare stepped on a piece of glass. The sound alerted the guards, who surprisingly to Rainbow, busted through without a second thought. They found the mare who made the sound pressed against a wall. Through a small crack in her hiding spot Rainbow peered through to see what was happening and was disgusted by what she saw. The guards were three burly looking stallions who wore what seemed to be a mixture of both the Solar and Lunar guard's armor. The leader of the group, a unicorn, used his magic to tear away at the cloak the mare used and what Rainbow saw nearly broke her. The mare that saved her was none other than Cheerilee, the mare who was teaching at the school in Ponyville. The stallion to her right then slapped her into a nearby room and growled in an almost animal like tone. "So you’re the famous Cherry Bomb huh?" He said with malice in his eyes. Cheerilee shot him a look of pure venom before trying to fight back and the slap from the earth stallion finally made Rainbow snap. She wanted to charge out but then she remembered her saddlebag was still strapped to her. The pegasus grinned, knowing it was time to bring back an old friend. "HOLD STILL!!" The guard yelled while still trying to subdue the fighting teacher, who wasn't making things easy flailing around, and so failed to notice the figure that descended behind his two friends. The new mare took down the unicorn and earth pony quietly but the pegasus had already been alerted and used Cheerilee as a shield. Before he could make any demands however the stallion saw who was in the room and looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "M-my queen?" was all he said before Cheerilee bucked him into a nearby wall. She turned towards the masked pony and saw, to her surprise, somepony dressed in an outfit almost mockingly similar to the outfit the ruler of this land wore but instead of a red-black-yellow color scheme it was mainly blue and purple. She nearly attacked the mare before the mare took off her mask. "Cheerilee it's okay now alright. It's me Rainbow" She said as she slowly walked towards her, hoof outstretched so that she would be able to hold down the teacher if need be. As she got closer the earth pony slowly became less hostile and relaxed. She looked at the knocked out guard before giving Cheerilee a smirk "Cherry Bomb?" She asked her but the look on the former teacher’s face implored they not discuss it now. “Now, who was it that said I died?” Rainbow asked. “When Celestia and Luna were defeated by our new ruler…” Cheerilee said, disdain evident in her tone as she spoke, “Rainbow Dash, our Rainbow Dash… I’m guessing she was still upset from the whole thing with Mare Do Well, she’d been getting more and more desperate… and reckless I guess… trying to prove herself to the town when Mare Do Well would outdo her at every turn. She tried to face her alone, the others were too late to save her. Negamare had already won. Without the royal sisters to raise the sun and moon, the sky is trapped in a permanent twilit state, and without the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, she’s unstoppable.” Cheerilee finished. Rainbow merely stared at her. To hear what happened to the royal sisters was bad enough but then to hear that all this happened back during the incident when she first saw Mare Do Well suddenly hit her, this is how her life could’ve been and still could be. She shook her head before talking to Cheerilee again. “Who’s this Negamare that took over?” immediately Rainbow regretted her question as the teachers eyes suddenly became dark with hatred. “Negamare is a cruel, ruthless, cold, and calculative monster that took over a long time ago. I already told you that she banished the royal sisters to their celestial bodies right? What I forgot to mention was that no one knows how she did it, Hay seeds nopony knows who she even is.” Cheerilee said in pure anger. Rainbow saw that she had touched a nerve and decided not to press on the matter. Still, part of defeating her would lie in discovering Negamare’s identity, so Rainbow made a mental note to be on the lookout for any clues that could lead her to that. “So you got your own superhero getup thing going on…” Rainbow said, deciding to change the subject for now. “Is there somepony out there you’re fighting? Somepony I can help deal with?” She asked, doubting Cheerilee had any intention of going after Negamare, at least not directly. “There is a group of ponies secretly fighting against her. Believe it or not the leader is not a pony himself. It’s actually a griffon named Razorbeak.” “What?!” Rainbow asked, completely in shock. She remembered that name, how could she ever forget? The name her former friend had used as an alias in a sick plan to destroy Cloudsdale all just to hurt her. Why would Gilda ever oppose Negamare? If anything she’d have expected should Gilda have chosen this same path in this world she’d have sided with her. Then it hit her. Gilda had wanted revenge. She’d been obsessed with it enough to come back with the scheme she had. Gilda was always extremely prideful, perhaps she was angry that Negamare had robbed her of revenge she felt overly entitled to? That made some amount of sense, Gilda probably didn’t care at all about Equestria, or its inhabitants, it was just a matter of redirecting her revenge. As the two mares were talking, however, both failed to notice the new mare that just rolled through the town on her way back to her boss’s castle. So two mares who not only took out three of the most elite fighters Negamare has but they also have connections to the resistance. Just as she was about to turn tail and leave she noticed that one of the mares was wearing purple and blue… and her mask looked awfully a lot like her boss lady’s mask. “I-it can’t be.” Quickdraw whispered to herself. She turned around and sped off towards the Twilit Castle. She busted through the front doors and saw her boss sitting on her throne with a look of calm on her face, although it was hard to tell with her mask still on. “You have something to report Quickdraw?” Negamare asked the masked outlaw. The mare in question started to sweat, having never told her boss bad news before so she started with some good news first. “Well the Appleloosans have surrendered all they got, boss!” Quickdraw explained. “Even if they reckoned they could handle us! Durn fools just gotta keep learnin’ their place over an’ over again, not that that’s a problem.” Negamare narrowed her gaze at the other mare, she could see there was more to it than this. “And?” The pegasus asked. “Well, ya’all ain’t gonna believe this. Ah can barely believe it myself… there’s another pony out there, she’s dressed in a Mare Do Well costume. An’ she’s a pegasus, too!” Negamare approached, glaring down at the cowpony. “Are you suggesting that you think Rainbow Dash is under that mask?” She asked. “Aren't you forgetting? Rainbow Dash is DEAD!” The masked mare shouted at her. Quickdraw was suddenly aware of her heart trying to escape her chest. “I know boss lady! I just thought you oughta know in case somepony decides to try and lead her to the resistance an’ all ya know?” She said, scared out of her mind at the moment. Fortunately this seemed to satisfy the dark mare as she flapped back to her throne. “Sorry about that. With these pitiful riots, plus the escaped prisoner still out there, I have a really low tolerance for stories of old ghosts coming back from the grave. See to it she is unmasked, and expose her as the deluded pony seeking to bring back an abandoned symbol that she probably is.”