Chapter 3 the trials: (rainbow dash vs. pride)
The night was quiet, everypony was asleep. Rainbow Dash was sound asleep in her cloudhome. She rolled over in her bed, the movement made her wake up. She yawned and slowly opened her eyes, her eyes went wide at what she saw, it was herself but with fangs and blacked out eyes. It was perched on her bed top staring at her, fangs elongated with an evil sneer across its face.
Rainbow screamed and ran to a corner of her room.
“What in the name of celestia are you?” Rainbow nervously asked, trembling in fear hoping that whatever she was seeing was only a figment of her imagination.
“Well my demon name is Pride, but you can call me Rainbow Dash because I’m going to take your life in ten seconds flat.” The counterpart then laughed at its own joke. And Rainbow wasn’t sure what she was more concerned at, the fact that there was a demon in her room threatening to kill her, or that this creature looked and sounded exactly like her.
“You look nervous, that’ll make this fun. Tell ya what, I’ll give you a head start before I send you with Twilight, she’ll be so happy to see somepony else down there.”
“WHAT DID YOU DO WITH TWILIGHT!?” Rainbow viciously asked, she was done with this thing’s games and nonchalant attitude, she had an angry look on her face and the demon was only smiling. Rainbow screamed and tackled the counterpart, pinning it to the cloud floor of her home.
“I said what did you do with Twilight!?” Rainbow dash said glaring deep within the demon’s eyes, the same sneer still plastered on its face. The counter-part laughed before using its hind legs to buck rainbow upwards, making Rainbow hit the ceiling with a loud *smack, she then came back down and as she did the counterpart saw where she was going to land and reared its hind legs before hitting rainbow again, this time in the side of her stomach and she was sent to the wall in front of her.
Rainbow coughed blood as she struggled to get back up. “How the hell can you be me?” Rainbow asked in hopes of buying herself some time to recover. She clenched her stomach as a sudden surge of pain made her made vomit some more blood.
The counterpart laughed again “Oh as far as I’m concerned I am you, and you’re just something that wants to be me when in reality I’m far better than you. So since we can’t have two of us I’ll have to either kill you or send you to hell. I haven’t gotten to kill anything in a long while so I’m hoping to be able to do that, it doesn’t look like you’re going to last much longer anyway. That’s a shame, and here I actually thought my double might actually be stronger than me but it turns out two bucks to the chest are what kills you.”
“Shut up!” Rainbow dash yelled before she shot through the window of her room, shattering the glass and dashing out in a burst of speed. Some glass had cut her on her way out and a few shards were plunged around her body, most of them being her flank. Luckily none of the shards had hit her wings and she was able to fly alright. She didn’t know where to go, she just knew she had to get away from whatever it was that was chasing her.
As she was flying, the force of the wind on her fresh cuts stung and her whole body was surging with pain, she was getting dizzy at the profuse amounts of blood she was losing. She continued to fly when she heard a voice speak to her as if it were right next to her “Face your demon.”
Rainbow dash looked around and let out a “Huh?” before seeing Pride fly next to her, her wings weren’t that of a Pegasus, they were that of a bat. Rainbow looked at the creature in confusion. But she didn’t have much time to as Pride then spread her wings upward causing her to reduce speed drastically. She was now behind Rainbow and she didn’t like it, she looked behind her to see a vortex of swirling black clouds spinning clockwise. Rainbow dash’s eyes went wide in horror and she disregarded how much pain she was in and did her best to increase her speed.
Rainbow dash was just to escape the vortex’s force that was pulling her back until Pride hovered right in front her, scaring Rainbow and she stumbled back into the darkness. Rainbow was flailing around helplessly until the blood she lost finally got the best of her and she fainted.
Rainbow dash woke up and noticed that her cuts were gone along with the pain she was feeling earlier. “Where am I?” Rainbow asked to herself surveying the area around her. It was cloudsdale except nopony but her was there. She hated being alone, and cloudsdale wasn’t exactly the most relaxing place to be for Rainbow, even if it was daytime. She looked around and saw all the buildings and coliseums that decorated the streets of Cloudsdale.
“Nice bit of scenery huh?” A familiar voice called from behind her. Rainbow whipped around to see Pride standing behind her.
“Where are we? And why isn’t anypony but you and me here?” Rainbow asked. She knew she couldn’t be anywhere but someplace else, things just didn’t feel like Cloudsdale, or equestria for that matter, to Rainbow Dash.
“Pretty much you’re in hell and since there can be only one of us in both of our dimensions I’m afraid you’re gonna have to kill me here if you want to live. You see, your real body is already dead and the body you’re seeing with right now is your subconscious. This is somewhat like a second chance to ponies that have done wrong, but usually they never survive and since it was so easy to kill you on earth, I imagine it won’t be too difficult to seal the deal here. But the thing is, I don’t know what challenges are going to be placed for you and me, the trials are all based off of your life so for your sake I hope your life wasn’t tragic. Good luck, you’re gonna need it.”
“Hey one last thing, why are you being somewhat nice to me all of a sudden?” Rainbow asked, wanting to know more about this creature.
The counterpart looked away and said “It’s because deep down I used to actually be nice in a past life, my other body, the one who sent you here or your demon, is harboring me. A lost spirit wanting to be free again. But don’t think that just cause I’m nice here doesn’t mean I’m not gonna fight to get out of here, I’ve lived here in misery for 3 centuries and I’m not about to lose my chance to escape.”
This was the last thing Pride said before vanishing along with the scenery around Rainbow dash.
Authors note: next chapter * Chapter 4: the trials (Rainbow Dash Vs. Pride) What awoke her Pride.