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// It Begins 
// Story: Sins of Our Mothers 
// by Hextechnician 
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“I’m flyin’ here!” Rainbow Dash yelled at a passing hovercraft as it narrowly avoided running into her. Shaking her head, she continued to speed off towards her destination in Manehattan. Ever since the invention of the Mana Battery 15 years ago by the newly crowned Princess Twilight, technology had been advancing at a staggering rate. With a way to store energy in an extremely powerful and portable fashion, this gave ponies a new outlook towards invention and industry. Earth ponies and pegasi alike could use devices that allowed them to levitate certain objects or perform tasks that would otherwise be difficult with hooves. Entire towns could be built almost overnight due to advances in construction with machines that could be automated by spell work and run on their own power. The towns already in existence were rapidly expanding both upwards and outwards. The term “suburbs” quickly became a household word with the need to differentiate between the rural and the city life. 
Then there were the hovercraft, Rainbow didn’t harbor much love for those. The now outdated blimps weren’t so bad, they didn’t fly at the speeds she could. If ground bound ponies were meant to fly, they would have been born pegasi, right? Dismissing the irritating thought from her mind, she decided to fly to a higher altitude instead of playing chicken with oncoming traffic. She soared high above the skyscrapers and was able to see her destination in sight, the open-top Manehattan Blitzball Arena. She smirked and sped off towards the crowd of fans she knew was bound to meet her. 
Now, it was no secret to anybody that knew Rainbow Dash, she wanted to be a Wonderbolt for the longest time. Turns out she was able to accomplish her dream after only being in the academy for a year. She would be remembered as the youngest to qualify in Wonderbolt history. It was easily the happiest she had been in her life…until about 4 years later in the bittersweet event that had her take over for Soarin as Captain. Rainbow Dash was exactly where she wanted to be in her life. However, with the rise of new technology, there was also a rise in the entertainment industry. There was a new form of competition that was sweeping the globe that everypony was talking about, blitzball. The sport took away most advantages that any race of pony had over the other by pitting them against each other in a floating sphere of water. The object of the game was to get the ball into the goal of the opposing team, much like any other sport. Unlike other sports, there were very light limitations on what players were allowed to do to wrestle for control of the ball. Players all had to be outfitted with groundbreaking rune implants that allowed for underwater breathing. Many who tried to get into the game would also need to hone their strength, their agility, or both due to the water resistance.  The result was a strangely addicting high contact sport that had no equal.
At first Rainbow didn’t really have much interest in the game; the Wonderbolts were her life and there was room for little else, besides meeting with her friends when she could. Over the course of the next few years though, the game took off. She occasionally found herself watching the matches on television from time to time. She started to get an itch for the competition and she really didn’t have anything else she needed to do when the Wonderbolts were in their off-season. She decided to try out for the Manehattan Gulls.
If Rainbow Dash wasn’t a household name at that point, it surely was after her first major game in which she single-hoofedly scored 6 points. Turns out she was almost as good a swimmer as she was a flyer. Her agility and dexterity won in most situations where her strength was lacking. She would have been even better had it not been for the pegasi wing restrictions. Instead of being able to use her pride and joy, they had to be kept inside a special blitz uniform that was skin tight. Regardless, she still managed to become the team’s star player and a fan favorite, much to the delight of her friends and ego. As Rainbow came closer to landing at the stadium, she prepared the latter for inflation.
Upon landing outside the arena, she was instantly swarmed by fans young and old. Each was clamoring for an autograph, a hoofbump, or simply to get her attention. It feels good to be the king, she thought to herself. She then berated herself when she realized her head was getting to the size of a certain incident in Ponyville years back. Old habits die hard I guess. She tried to sign as many autographs as she could while catering to the crowd. Her eye spied the clock on the televisions posted around the stadium and she knew it was nearly time. 
“Come on now, everypony I gotta get into the stadium if you want a real reason to say my name!” She grinned as she tried to squeeze past the flood of ponies. After realizing she wasn’t going to make any progress quickly, she took to the air again to alleviate herself of most of the crowd, “Hey guys, I’m gonna be late!” After dodging a few airborne fans she entered the stadium to suit up for the game. Her was similar to her Wonderbolt outfit in that it was form-fitting, but it was much tighter around the wing area so as to not let them move. The suit covered her entire body and was cut at the neck and the ends of her legs, slightly before her hooves. She had to put it on hooves first and then her flank followed, the rest of the way up her chest to her neck was zipped up. The upper part of the suit around her back and sides was steel colored while the area around her belly and the insides of her legs was a blood red.
The inside of the stadium was full to bursting with spectators, eager to see some action. Rainbow laid herself back on the bench and closed her eyes to drown out the world around her. After a short while, her eyes opened to the sound of the stadiums engines flaring to life and the thunderous roar of the crowd. Rainbow stood on a horizontal ring that circled the stadium as a secondary ring gyrated while producing mana-induced sparks. She and the crowd flinched backwards as a shockwave rippled through the arena signaling the completion of the Blitzball Sphere creation. The game was on.
As the events of the game unfolded in the stadium, an old, light blue pegasus with a white streaked, navy blue mane could be seen standing upon a parapet looking out into the distance. He donned a red, buttoned cloak with a chin-high collar and sported a set of black armor. He lifted a large bottle out in front of himself in the direction of the ocean, where an extremely large mass was rising out of the water. After making his way down to the streets, he began to walk in the direction of the blitzball stadium. Ignoring the fleeing ponies around him, he continued forward as parts of the city started to come apart upon contact with the large entity. 
Back in the stadium, Rainbow jetted through the water to breach the top of the sphere as her teammate launched her the ball. As the ball headed towards her, she arched her back in reverse to set up for a sphere shot technique. After she turned completely upside-down, she saw past the stadium and into the city. Her eyes bulged and her mouth dropped open to let in a sharp intake of air. The entire world seemed to slow down as she witnessed events unfold. She saw the unnatural shape in the distance as it started to propel some sort of water-covered projectiles towards various buildings. One of such buildings being the stadium beneath her. With a resounding crash, the technology keeping the sphere in the air faltered and started to break down. Time seemed to speed up again and Rainbow saw the sphere coming apart beneath her. She attempted to right herself with her wings and was quickly reminded of their restricted status underneath her uniform. As she started plummeting towards the ground she tried to use her hoof to grab the edge of the horizontal ring that was still intact. She was able to get a hold of it and struggle for a few seconds, before being shaken off by the constant tremors travelling throughout the city. 
“AAAAAAHH!” she cried as she fell the rest of the way to the floor of the stadium. 



Rainbow awoke to find herself on the floor surrounded by the debris of the stadium. She started to get up off the ground only to be greeted by a jolt of pain on her left side. Is it…? Yeah…yep that’s broken. She thought to herself as she attempted to wiggle her left wing inside her suit. Or at least really badly sprained. The sound of chaos and confusion around her reminded her of where she was. Oh man, what the hay is going on here?! She quickly ran outside the stadium to try to get to safety, when she saw a familiar cloaked figure standing among the rubble. 
“Wha-? Soarin!” Rainbow shouted above the noise as she galloped over to him. “What are you doing here?”
“I was waiting for you,” Soarin calmly stated before travelling towards the source of destruction.
“What are you talking about?” She started after him, “And what’s with the clothes?” Before she could get an answer, the world froze around her. A little colt with a blue hood that covered his facial features approached the dumbstruck Rainbow Dash. She didn’t know who the colt was, but she somehow felt a connection to him. It was almost as if she had known him her whole life.
“It begins,” The colt said to her. Rainbow gave a noise of confusion to which he responded, “don’t cry.”
Before she could say anything, the world continued playing around her. “What the hay…?” She wondered aloud. And Rainbow Dash DOESN’T cry, she added mentally. She spotted Soarin far ahead of her and called out to him, “HEY! Wait up!” Upon reaching him she added, “I don’t know if you noticed, but that’s the exact opposite direction we should be running!” She panted to catch her breath.
Soarin looks from her to the source of destruction while saying, “Look.” Whatever the origin was, it had now fully risen out of the ocean and was floating in midair, surrounded by a sphere of water. Rainbow stared in awe at what appeared to be some sort of giant, brown whale with multiple sets of fins/flippers and a large tail. The entire being was coated in brown scales and all of its appendages were edged with a purple color. “We called it Sin.” 
“Sin? What’s that supposed to be?” Rainbow repeated as she and Soarin looked at each other. Again, before she could even hope for an answer, one of the many scales being launched from Sin hit a nearby building. That’s really starting to get old, she thought with an irritated look on her face. The scale that embedded itself seemed to have long, wiggling appendages of its own, similar to a jellyfish or an octopus. It also shot out countless smaller scales from its longest tentacle that landed all over the surrounding areas. 
Rainbow and Soarin started running in the direction of Sin, which led them straight towards a thick patch of the miniscales. When they closed the distance between them, the scales unfolded to reveal multiple short, quadruped creatures with two, tall wings extending upwards. In place of a face, they possessed three eyes and two fin-shaped pincers with spikes on the ends of them. 
“What the-? You mean that Sin-thing spawns bad guys that spawn even more bad guys?!” Rainbow was freaking out.
“Now you know why we called them Sinspawn.” replied Soarin. The creatures started to surround Rainbow and she responded by wildly bucking at them. Her attention was grabbed by a strange long sword that appeared out of the corner of her eye. The sharp edge of the blade was a standard silver color, while the area towards the center was slightly crimson. Soarin was holding it out to her with his arm outstretched, “Take it,” he told Rainbow. She did so, and noticed that the tip of the sword made a sharp angle that bent backwards to form a sort of hook shape. “A gift from Firefly.” Soarin explained. 
“My old mare?” She asked with disbelief evident in her voice. She swung it haphazardly at the Sinspawn in front of her, barely managing to keep her balance. 
“I hope you know how to use it…” Soarin said as he eyed her display.
“Sorry if I haven’t exactly been practicing,” She sounded irritated as she rolled her eyes at him, “but I think I can get the hang of it.” She smirked as she glanced back at the Sinspawn in front of her. As she did so, Soarin pulled out his own weapon, a long curved sword with a noticeable thickness to it. “Holy cow, Soarin! How can you even hold that thing? It’s almost as big as me!” Rainbow exclaimed. 
“You get used to it,” Soarin shrugged, “it also helps if you rest it on your shoulder like so when you aren’t swinging it.”
“If you say so…” Rainbow said with a hint of uncertainty. She and Soarin charged towards the first wave of Sinspawn blocking their path. Rainbow wasn’t used to fighting without her wings, much less with a sword, but she managed to use her dexterity to dodge the monsters incoming strikes and slash at it from the side. Hardly a perfect cut, but it managed to do the job as the creature let out a cry and lit up brightly before dispersing into multiple colored wisps that floated away. Soarin met his first foe head on with a heavy slash from directly above the Sinspawn’s head. It split in half and vanished in a manner similar to the one Rainbow had felled. 
“What’s with the strobe lights?” Rainbow asked as she cut into another enemy.
“They’re called pyreflies,” Soarin said, raising his sword for another strike. “All living beings have them, they’re kind of like your soul.” 
“How come I’ve never heard of them?” Rainbow asked him.
Soarin ignored the question, “We need to get through, cut the ones that matter and run.” They both continued through the swarms of enemies and made their way to the middle of a bridge. They found themselves surrounded on both sides by what seemed to be an endless amount of the foul beings. “This could be bad…” Soarin’s eyes shifted from left to right. He spotted a large mana tanker hanging off the edge of the bridge. “That! Knock it down!” He ordered Rainbow.
“WHAT?!” She looked at him like he was crazy.
“Trust me, you’ll see.” He merely stated, “I’ll hold them off.”
Rainbow started to heave against the giant explosive canister. She soon realized it wasn’t going to budge, when suddenly she spied the cables coupling the tanker to the craft that had pulled it. She gave a couple overhead strikes to them until they completely snapped. The tanker fell the long distance to the ground below and released a violent explosion to the base of an adjacent building. The structural integrity collapsed in response to the damage and the building started to fall forward until it came crashing down onto the bridge. All of the Sinspawn blocking their way were instantly crushed and the bridge started to shake rapidly. 
“GO!” Soarin shouted to Rainbow and they both rushed ahead over the remains of the collapsed building to reach the other side. Rainbow tried to catch up to Soarin as that section bridge started to fall apart. She ran to the edge of the building as it fell and made a desperate leap to reach the part of the bridge that was still standing. She managed to catch the edge of it with her forehooves and struggled to claw her way onto the bridge. She noticed Soarin slowly walk towards the edge she was hanging onto.
“Soarin!” She shouted, “A little help here?” Soarin turned his head up to the sky that was now filled with a strange, fluctuating vortex. What the…she thought as she just noticed it, that things color looks a lot like...Sin’s? 
“You are sure?” Soarin nodded his head towards it as if it could hear him. 
“What the hay’s wrong with you?” Rainbow was interrupted as he bent down to grip her by her uniform. 
He brought her up close to his face as he said, “This is it. This is your story.” Rainbow struggled against his hold as she wondered what he was talking about. She noticed the debris around them was floating up towards the vortex and felt herself floating in his grip as well. “It all begins here.” This was the last thing Rainbow heard him say before his body began to warp into the vortex’s eye.
“AAAAAAGH!” She screamed as the vortex consumed her along with him.