Rarity tried to keep up with Dartmoor, she really did. It was all but impossible. The stallion was darting between dumpsters and bushes, fences and carts like a protagonist from a bad spy movie. Either he had no idea what he was doing, was a seasoned master at what he was doing, or he was trying to evade the hyper pink pony trying to babble at him. Rarity decided that it was most likely the latter.
“All I’m saying Mr. Dartmoor is that if we want to find Twilight, we just call for her. I mean, Twilight always comes when I call for her. Although usually it’s because I’m giving her an invitation, and who wouldn’t want invitations? That gives me an idea! TWILIIIIGHT!”
“Shut up! Damn it, just shut up! Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!”
“Why? I thought we were looking for Twilight. Plus, I was bored.”
As they stopped to bicker, Agister and Rarity caught up to them at the head of a dark alley, wheezing rapidly. “Pinkie, dear,” Agister coughed out, “Please don’t shout for Twilight. If a Disciple heard you, they’d come investigate.”
“Then how are we going to find Twilight?”
“I suggest… phew, let Dartmoor worry about that.”
“But what if he wants help?” she asked, turning to Dartmoor and smiling brightly.
“No.”
“Aw… lame!”
“Why don’t you help Rarity, Pinkie?" Agister said, "I’m sure she’s still a little sore from that mountain lion attack. Maybe she’d like some company?”
Rarity’s eyes widened. “Oh no, that’s really not ness…”
“Okie Dokey Lokie!” She leaped toward Rarity, somehow sliding under her in a swift motion and somehow lifted her into the air. The unicorn cried out as Pinkie roughly pressed against her wounds.
“Put me down!”
“But then I wouldn’t be helping.” Pinkie frowned.
Agister facehoofed and shook his head. “Pinkie, please just… I mean, how about you walk with me for a while?”
Pinkie nodded happily and darted out from under Rarity, leaving her suspended in the air. Only Agister’s quick use of magic saved her from falling. Pinkie rocketed towards his side, and looked at him with a smiling wink that hinted at all the balloon-filled horrors he could be in for. He sighed and set Rarity on the ground.
“Very well. Rarity, you and Dartmoor trail behind. We’ll go on ahead.”
Dartmoor frowned. “I’d rather scout ahead…”
“Would you like to go back to our old arrangement, instead?”
He glanced over at Pinkie, who winked. He blanched. “No. Absolutely not.”
Grumbling about “stupid, happy, interfering ponies”, he let Agister and a bouncing Pinkie pull ahead. As Pinkie’s voice faded into the distance in front of them, Rarity nervously glanced over at Dartmoor.
“If I might ask a question…”
“We’d better move out, too,” he interrupted.
“Oh, well alright.”
He didn’t walk particularly fast this time, perhaps because he was keeping pace with Pinkie and Agister in front of them. Agister seemed to have resigned himself to his fate and simply let the party pony bounce and babble beside him.
Rarity decided to try again. “There was something I was wondering about…”
“No time for talk.”
She stomped her hoof and pouted. “This is starting to get quite ridiculous. How can I be expected to travel with you—to help you—if I can’t even get in one word edgewise?”
“It seems you just got in a bunch of words, big mouth.”
“I… hmpf! That is the most… how uncivilized!”
“It seems to me this is a pretty uncivilized place. Tell me, have you noticed anything since we got here?” he responded lazily.
“I suppose that… I don’t know. What are you talking about?”
“When’s the last time you saw anypony else?”
“Now that I think about it, we haven’t.”
“Exactly. You’ve been to the empire before, right? How often have you seen the streets completely deserted?”
“Why, never.”
“There’s a curfew of some sort. My guess is that the Disciples have revealed themselves since that big-ass blue bubble showed up. And of course, even a hollow-headed drama queen like yourself should know what that means for us.”
Rarity puffed out her chest in indignation and opened her mouth for another retort, but slowly deflated. “There’s really no reason to keep insulting me, darling. If you don’t like me, then please let me know so I can fix it. We’re both trying to achieve the same goal, after all.”
“Well, if you’re going to be all reasonable, it takes all the fun out of it.”
“So you’re being a jerk because you find it fun?” she said incredulously, her jaw dropping slightly.
“Duh.”
“Well I never…”
“Now you have. Look lady, you’ve been trying to talk with me constantly. What do you want? Just tell me and then we can stop with this chatty shit.”
“I… I suppose I’m just trying to be friendly.”
“Mission accomplished. You’re friendly.”
“Why aren’t you?”
Dartmoor shrugged.
“Is it because of Assateague? I can understand how that would affect a pony.”
He shook his head in exasperation. “So Agister told you the story? The whole story?”
“I believe so.”
“Then you remember how he came across me in the first place?”
“I believe he said that you picked his pocket.”
“Exactly. I was a bastard before anything bad happened. My life was changed by what happened, yeah, but it’s not an excuse, or even a reason, for how I act. Ponies are always thinking that if something bad happens to somepony, then it’s an excuse for their flaws. It’s not. The truth is that I was planning to live as a vagrant long before the massacre ever happened.”
“Why would anypony want to do that?”
“It’s just how I am, toots. I’m a misponthrope.”
“There’s never been any pony whose company you enjoyed? You’ve never had a friend?”
“Don’t need one.”
“If you’ve never had a friend, how do you know that you wouldn’t enjoy having one? Friends are simply the best!”
Dartmoor sighed. “Look, I just know, alright? It’s not in my lifestyle to need a friend.”
“I used to think the same thing. When I was a bit younger, my dream was always to be a part of the elite fashion circles of Equestria. I wanted the fame, I wanted the attention, I wanted to namedrop my famous friends in front of lesser ponies to impress them. It wasn’t until I met Twilight that I realized that being a friend wasn’t about the status they gave you; it was about the happiness you gave each other. Maybe your mental picture of a friend is similarly misguided, Dartmoor.”
Dartmoor walked in silence for a moment, always keeping an eye on the two ponies fifty feet in front of them. He would occasionally stop to put his ear to the ground, or to sniff the air. Rarity hung her head with a pout. She was hoping that maybe if she confessed about her own problems with making friends, it might open him up. Now he was just ignoring her.
He suddenly stopped and looked at her with a raised eyebrow and a neutral face. “If I agree to be your friend, will you stop bugging me about it?”
“Of course, darling!”
“I don’t have to go through any ceremony or some dumb crap, will I?”
“Absolutely not, so long as we don’t tell Pinkie.”
“Sure, fine, whatever.”
Rarity squeed and threw her arms around the stallion. “Oh, this is simply the best! You’re going to love having a friend!” Dartmoor turned his head and gave her a deadpan stare. Rarity released him and shifted nervously. “Heh, heh.”
“Come on, we have to catch up to those two. I think Agister’s had about all he can take.”
The two of them quickened their pace to catch up with the other two ponies. Agister was now sitting down with his head in his hooves as Pinkie jumped excitedly. Rarity could only shake her head. As she doubled her pace to meet them, she felt a hoof catch her in her chest, stopping her in her tracks.
“Quiet,” whispered Dartmoor urgently, “There’s someone there.”
He gestured toward a lone pony walking down the street that was perpendicular to their alley. Rarity watched with bated breath, feeling something familiar about this figure. They waited to see if the pony would continue down the street, but it turned down the alley between them and the other two ponies in front of them.
“Stay here,” Dartmoor hissed. He crawled with incredible expertise after the intruder. Rarity watched as the intruding pony approached Pinkie and Agister with markedly less stealth. Craning her neck, she tried to hear what was transpiring as the pony approached closer and closer to her friends. He very obviously bumped into Pinkie.
“Oh, excuse me,” the pony stated loudly, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Wham! Dartmoor leaped on the intruder, pinning him to the ground. Rarity ran toward the scene as Pinkie and Agister looked on with confusion. As she got closer, she could make out the stallion more clearly. He was a pegasus wearing an Equestrian guard uniform, with an orange coat and a shock of blue hair. She reached the scene and immediately recognized him—he was the one who bumped into her the night Twilight was paralyzed!
“Who the hell are you?” Dartmoor hissed, punching the pony in the face with an iron-clad hoof.
“Ow! That hurt!”
Dartmoor punched him again. “What is a pegasus doing in the Crystal Empire? Talk!”
The pony started crying. Agister looked on with some concern; if they didn’t intervene, he might end up killing him. “Perhaps we should let someone with a little more… tact ask the questions?”
As Dartmoor turned toward him with skepticism, Pinkie pushed him off the pegasus and took his place pinning him to the ground.
“Oh! I’ll do it! I’m good at interrogations. What’s your name, criminal scum?”
The pony groaned. “Flash Sentry.”
Pinkie slapped him in the face. “What’s your problem, huh? Why do you steal waifus?” *slap* “Why don’t you have a developed personality?” *slap* “You’re the worst marketing decision ever!”
As Pinkie raised her hoof to slap him again, Agister pulled her off of him with his magic.
“Pinkie, dear, I don’t think you’re asking the right questions. Or any questions that make sense, in fact.” He turned toward Flash and picked him up off the ground. “The question that was asked of you earlier does need to be answered—what are you doing here?”
“I was going to the palace,” Flash answered between sobs.
Agister raised his eyebrows. “The palace? We were under the assumption that the palace was attacked…”
“It was.”
“Then why are you going there?”
Flash looked away, rubbing his sore face. Dartmoor groaned in frustration and pushed him up against the crystal wall of the building next to them. “Answer him or I’ll start asking the questions again!”
Flash sobbed. “No, not you…”
Dartmoor punched him again.
“Okay, okay, I’ll answer, just stop hitting me! It hurts…”
“Then talk.”
“The new leader promised anyone who could find Twilight Sparkle would get ten thousand bits.”
“And?”
“I found her.”
Rarity glared daggers at the beaten guard. “So you were going to sell our friend to these Disciple ruffians for money!?”
“Well, I didn’t want to at first. After all, I’ve bumped into her more than any other mare here, and that makes her really special. But then I realized that ten thousand bits is a lot of money. I mean, that’s almost a million!”
Agister sighed. “Alright, Flash Sentry. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to lead us to Twilight Sparkle. You’re going to be docile, and you’re not going to try to escape. If you try anything funny, then Dartmoor here is going to do what he does.”
Flash cast an anxious glance at Dartmoor, who was smiling evilly. He nodded.
“Very well. Dartmoor, release him.”
The earth pony reluctantly complied. Flash wiped a tear from his eye and slowly started traipsing back the direction he had come from. The other four ponies followed with restlessness. They had found a clue to Twilight’s location! It was a better start than they had expected.
Dartmoor took position beside their captive, keeping him firmly in his peripheral vision. Pinkie quickly jumped to Flash’s other side, marching like a prison guard. The four ponies walked down the street with their captive, his eyes nervously darting toward Dartmoor. After several minutes, he seemed to decide that he wasn't going to be hit again. He turned his head the other direction and cast a glance toward Pinkie Pie.
Faking a stumble, he swerved and bumped into her. “Excuse me,” he said, “We’ve got to stop bumping into each other like this…”
Dartmoor punched him in the face.
“Can I please kill him?”
***
Rainbow Dash pulled into herself, trying in vain to hug herself warm. She just wanted the sun to rise already. Although in the cold of autumn, it wouldn’t provide too much comfort. Still, something was better than nothing. Human-Dash just continued staring into the fire, absentmindedly biting into a strip of beef jerky.
“You know, in hindsight, I probably should have put where we were really going on that flight plan I filed.”
“You didn’t?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?! They would have found us by now if you had, right?”
Human-Dash nodded. “I don’t know. I guess I was afraid that Spitfire would come back and see it. But then again, she would have seen the plane was gone and that I forged her signature on it, anyway.”
Rainbow opened her mouth to make a snide comment, but then slumped her shoulders. What good was getting angry going to help right now? “I guess you know better next time.”
“‘Next time’?” said Human-Dash bitterly, “There’s not going to be a next time. They already know we’re missing. They already know I flew the plane without a license. There’s no way I’ll be able to get one now.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I’m not going to be a Wonderbolt, Dash! My future’s over!”
Without thinking, Rainbow pulled her human counterpart into a hug, allowing her to sob silently into her chest. She rubbed her head awkwardly and thought about how horrible a realization it was for her friend. She couldn’t even imagine having lost her dream. Sure, she made a decent living at her weather control job, but it was just that—a job. It didn’t make her happy; it kept her alive. She didn’t even know if Human-Dash had a job.
The human shook her head and pulled herself up, wiping the moistness out of her eyes. “Sorry, pony-girl,” she said hoarsely, “I guess I panicked there for a second. That was pretty uncool.”
“Eh, it happens.”
“I’m going to have to come visit you now, it’s the only way I’ll be able to fly again. You think that I’ll turn into a pony when I get to Horseworld?”
“Equestria,” Rainbow corrected, “And yeah, I think so. I actually really want you to come see me. I’ve got a badass house in the clouds. And you can see how the pony Wonderbolts fly. It’s a sight.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“But we have to get out of this jam first.”
“Well, then what’s the plan, cute stuff?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I guess the first thing to do is find some water.”
“It’s a start, but it’s probably best to wait here until we can actually see.”
“Yeah. Heh.”
“So…” Human-Dash raised an eyebrow. “You wanna do round two?”
Rainbow opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a yawn, which was itself interrupted by her chattering teeth. “I would, but I’m way too cold.”
“Yeah, I guess. We’ll just have to get around to that when we get back. Speaking of, I have a question to ask you.”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t suppose it’s that comfortable living at AJ’s. I mean, it’s not that big of a place, and somebody’s probably sleeping on the couch, and… I guess what I’m trying to ask is, you want to stay with me while you’re here?”
Rainbow’s eyes grew wide. “You mean stay with you in your apartment? In that huge building?”
“Yep.”
“That would be so cool!” Rainbow gushed, “Is it cool with your dad, though?”
“Dad’s on deployment. He’s not getting back for a couple months, so he won’t even know you’re there. Thank god, cause I'm not looking forward to the ass-chewing he's going to give me for crashing his plane.”
“Is… Would he be okay with me staying there?”
Human-Dash shrugged. “Who cares? What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“I don’t know, Dash. That feels kind of wrong.”
“Do you want to or not?” The human girl looked over at her lookalike with a skeptical eye, as if questioning her new friend’s coolness. Rainbow’s moral objections began to wilt under the gaze, and she gave a nervous laugh.
“I’m just kidding. Of course I’ll live with you, but we have to get home first.”
“Glad to hear it.”
The two girls looked toward the fire as Human-Dash absently poked at it with a stick. It was rapidly burning down, and their pile of wood had long since been utilized. The sun had not yet made its ascent known on the horizon, and the crickets held chirping matches all through the tall grasses of the field. Rainbow Dash watched the last flames of the fire die into embers and thought.
She asked me to live with her. Soooo cool. The coolest girl I’ve ever met, and she wants to live with me. Does that mean she really does want to be marefriends? Obviously, no one would ever live with somepony else unless they were serious. Then why had she dodged the question earlier? I have to find out for sure.
“Hey, Rainbow…” she started.
“Yeah?”
“If I ask you a question, will you promise to be a hundred twenty percent serious when you answer?”
“As long as you don’t ask me if I think you’re fat.”
“Dash! Seriously!”
“Ugh…” Human-Dash shook her head. “You need to chill out, pony-girl. Sure, I’ll be serious. But that doesn’t mean I can’t refuse to answer the question.”
“When you…”
“You could stand to lose ten pounds.”
“Oh, come on!” Rainbow threw her hands up in exasperation. “I’m going back to sleep.”
“Aw, don’t be like that. You’re the same size as me; there’s no way you’re fat.”
“Just forget it. I shouldn’t be worried about that stupid crap right now, anyway. Just forget I said anything. Wake me up when the sun rises, I guess.”
With a sympathetic look in her eye, Human-Dash got up and strode over to her. She grabbed the pony-girl in a bear hug, eliciting the smallest noise of surprise. After a moment, she relaxed and returned the comforting embrace.
Human-Dash pulled away slightly and looked her counterpart in the eyes. “Look, Rainbow, I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little stressed, and I was trying to laugh my way out of it. I should have listened to you. Now, what is it you wanted to ask me?”
“Remember when I asked you if we were in a relationship?”
The human nodded.
“Well, you…”
Rainbow stopped, looking around. A distinct whirring sound seemed to be coming from the horizon, like a skilled pegasus flying at top speed. Human-Dash heard it as well, and she quickly broke the embrace and ran toward the sound.
“They’re here! Dash, they’re here!”
“What? Who’s here?”
Human-Dash spun around, eyes gleaming and smile wide. “Spitfire! That’s her copter, I’d recognize that sound anywhere! Quick go blow on the fire, get it as bright as you can. This could be our only chance!” She leaped toward the survival bag and pulled out a large flashlight. Lighting it, she swung it around and dashed into the field, laughing like a mad woman.
Rainbow’s heart beat into her throat. Rational though did not register in her mind, only the vague awareness of hope, adrenaline, and that she was dashing toward the fire. Practically falling on her hands and knees, she hyperventilated into it, trying to pump as much oxygen as possible into the dying embers. As the light grew with each exhale and dimmed with each inhale, she could only find strength to desperately scream a mantra in her mind—
Please see us! Please see us! Please see us! Please see us…
***
Captain Phalanx prostrated himself before Princess Celestia. He was a behemoth of a stallion, whose height and muscles had few rivals across the kingdom. His underlings often called him “Captain Hernia”, due to his habit of screaming himself hoarse at the smallest infraction. However, there were few as dedicated a soldier as he, and Princess Celestia could think of nopony more suited to replace Shining Armor as the captain of the royal guard.
“Rise, captain,” she instructed, “Report.”
“Yes, your highness. There’s been an attack in the east side of town by a group of unknown assailants. They have collapsed the entrance to the mountain caverns, and have taken several civilians hostage.”
“Where are they now?”
Phalanx shifted uncomfortably. “That’s the thing, your highness. We’re… not exactly sure.”
“I see. What other information can you give me?”
“There were no guards in that area of town at the time of the attack, and witnesses to the attack vary in their estimation of the size of the opponent. Estimates vary from half a dozen to two dozen or more. Civilian hostages are estimated to be about a dozen, your highness.”
“Very well. Send two regiments of guards to the town to protect the population.”
“Two regiments, Princess?” Phalanx looked up in disbelief. “But that would only leave one left to guard the castle!”
“The security of my little ponies is my number one priority, captain.”
“Permission to speak freely!”
“Very well.”
“Keep all the guards in the palace! Your security is my number one priority. The Royal Equestrian Army is only one day’s march from here. Send word to recall a division of pegasus knights to Canterlot if you must, but the Royal Guards are sworn to protect your highness at all costs.”
Celestia sighed. “No, captain. That is invariably what the attackers are vying for. This is clearly a diversion from the real crises, which is in the Crystal Empire. You will do as ordered. Is there anything else, Captain?”
“No, princess,” Phalanx sighed.
“Dismissed.”
Phalanx saluted and left with his chief of staff. Celestia fell back on her throne, wearily resting her head on her hooves. These cultists were planning something, and for once, her intelligence operations couldn’t uncover their full intentions. Their plans seemed so clumsy, so lackadaisical. Why take over the Crystal Empire when the military might of Equestria was so superior? There were no walls around the city, and its climate would be too cold to withstand a siege in any case. No, there was something else going on here.
Celestia had never met Grimm Shado when he was Sombra’s prime minister, although she heard he had a reputation as a shrewd tactician and a sadistic pony. She had attempted to find him when the empire returned, but he had vanished. After all this time, it appeared he finally came up with a plan. If only she understood it. Did it have something to do with the Kīla of Gothmog? Perhaps he had been the one to incapacitate the Elements of Harmony with the attack on Twilight.
No, that didn’t make sense. Nopony, not even the Princess of the Sun herself, had the kind of power to control the mind of another pony, especially an alicorn. There was something else going on here, something deeper. She had to figure out what they were planning before it was too late…
…
Unknown to Princess Celestia, the door to a side office stood cracked open. A smiling pegasus pony shut it and prepared his next move. Grimm was right; Celestia was predictable. She was doing exactly what they wanted her to do.
Sly Hoof alighted to the nearest window and took off toward the mountain summit. When the king returned, he would be rewarded with all the gold and slaves he could ever use.
***
Applejack stared anxiously out the window. Forests and plains and hills and houses flew by underneath them. According to Scootaloo, this was the direction that the human Rainbow often flew in. The teenage girl was riding next to Spitfire, her head drooping in sleepiness and exhaustion. The plane was actually surprisingly roomy for its size, seating four people. She and Human-AJ sat in the small seat in the back, scanning the ground as well as they could out of their tiny windows. Scootaloo had said that they weren’t at the location yet, but Spitfire had insisted they search the entire time, in case they had crashed before they arrived at the field.
AJ felt her stomach lurch as the word resounded in her head—crashed. It was such a horrible word, a word that seemed to set her on edge whenever it concerned Rainbow. It was true that fatal pegasus crashes were rare in Equestria, but they weren’t in Equestria. In this place, it was apparently the exception rather than the rule that crashes were survivable. The atmosphere of panic that had pervaded the air around her new friends had infected her, infected her with fear and sadness. It’s a natural thing to imagine the worst when the worst is a possibility, even if one expects the best, no matter how slim the chances. Applejack’s heart had a hidden confidence, even if her face showed nothing but tiredness and fatigue.
She felt a set of fingers wrap themselves around her hand. They were warm and firm, and she felt a steady groundedness in them. She traced the hand that was holding hers up to its source—her human counterpart. Human-AJ gazed at her in sympathy, and she squeezed her hand reassuringly. The roar of the helicopter prevented any talking, but the non-verbal solidarity that simple hand-holding conveyed was equally effective, if not more so. Applejack smiled back and turned back toward the window, resuming her vigil over the land below.
Wait… what was that? She bolted upright in her seat and stared at the ground with intensity. She could have sworn she just saw a flash of light. As the helicopter flew by, she craned her neck to better see the area where the light had shone.
Nothing. The plane flew past the meadow. AJ sank back into her seat in disappointment. Still, she couldn’t help the nagging feeling in the back of her head that there was something down there. She leaned up and yelled in Spitfire’s ear.
“Ah saw a light!”
“Probably our lights reflected on a puddle!” she shouted back.
“Can we circle around? Please?”
Spitfire rubbed her face in weary exhaustion, but did as the farmpony requested. The helicopter banked and circled around. Next to her, Human-AJ sat up and silently asked a question with a curious glance—“Why are we turning around?” In reply, Applejack simply gestured wildly at the ground, trying to encourage her counterpart to watch.
As they passed over the meadow a second time, Spitfire operated the searchlight in a sweeping motion. Even Scootaloo woke up to look, with alert, yet baggy eyes. They scanned over acres of empty grass, each passenger frantically watching for a rainbow. Seconds agonizingly ticked by…
“Look!” shouted Scootaloo suddenly, gesticulating wildly out the front window, where the searchlight just barely illuminated a dark mass by the treeline.
“It’s a plane!” screamed Human-AJ with excitement as she saw what Scootaloo was pointing to. Mile-wide grins were exchanged around everyone in the helicopter as Spitfire took it in for a landing.
The rotor began to quiet and slow as the ground came ever closer. Heart bursting with ecstasy, Applejack ignored all fear and logic in her mind and pushed open the door when the landing struts were a few feet off the ground. She leaped out of the side in a single bound, ignoring the surprised shouts of those within. Not anticipating the momentum of her jump, she stumbled as she painfully hit the ground, rolling to a stop at the feet of a person.
She gazed up into the face she had been dreaming of seeing since their fight two nights previous. Ignoring scrapes and bruises, she leaped to her feet and threw her arms around Rainbow.
“Oh Celestia, Rainbow! Ah was so worried… so worried. Ah’m awful sorry about that argument the other night. Ah’m just so glad you’re okay!” Intoxicating emotions still pumping through her veins, her overpowered mind willed her to do something she would have never dreamed of doing in a sober state.
She pecked Rainbow Dash on the lips.
Rainbow didn’t reciprocate. Not that AJ expected her to. Not that AJ would expect herself to even do that. With heat exploding onto her face, she pulled away and looked up at Rainbow sheepishly.
“Heh heh. Sorry ‘bout that, sugarcube. Ah… Ah don’ know what Ah was thinkin’.”
Rainbow merely stood there and stared at her. She reached up and idly touched the tip of her finger to the lips AJ had just kissed. Then a smirk appeared as she found her words again.
“Woah there, cowgirl. I would have never expected that out of you! Holy crap! Maybe I should go missing more often!”
Applejack’s heart seized. “Hold on a minute. Are you my Rainbow?”
“I guess I am now,” she chuckled.
AJ stamped her foot. “Y’all know what Ah mean! Are you the human or the pony?!”
“Well, me and the other Rainbow are both human—I know, I checked. But I was always human. So are you the sexy AJ I know or the sexy AJ I don’t?”
“Durn it, you! Y’all shouldn’t… Ah mean… Jus’…Buck! Where the Tartarus is pony Rainbow?”
Human-Dash gestured toward a darkened area of the field. “Last I saw her she was blowing the fire, but I guess it went out. Guess I have to give her another lesson about getting blown.”
“Ah don’ know what the hay that means. Jus’… get outta mah way.”
AJ pushed past the smirking human, her emotional state suddenly shifting from overly excited to overly embarrassed. She ran in the direction that Human-Dash had pointed, as a dark shape could quickly be seen rising above the field. Seeing their tent, Applejack sprinted forward, thoughts of seeing her friend once again in the forefront of her mind. She reached it, heaving, and glanced inside. Nothing. She turned around and saw the barely visible coals of a campfire, with an unconscious figure lying next to it.
“Rainbow!” AJ shouted in panic.
She sprung towards the figure and placed her head to her chest. Still breathing. She breathed a sigh of relief and gently shook the pony-girl.
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash muttered as her eyes fluttered open, “Dashie?”
“What? Nah, it’s me, AJ.”
“AJ?”
Applejack lifted her friend up and held her, and Rainbow’s cognitive faculties returned steadily. She gazed into AJ’s face and smiled.
“I knew you’d come.”
“Shucks, sugarcube. Ah’d never leave ya hanging out here with that hooligan. Are ya alright?”
“Yeah, I think so,” she said as she pulled herself into a sitting position, “I guess I hyperventilated when I was trying to get the fire back up. Oops.”
“Don’ worry about it none, Dash. As long as you’re safe.”
“Stupid human body. I probably could have restarted this dumb fire in ten seconds if I were still a pony.”
“Yeah…” AJ responded absently, gazing at her friend, “By the way, Ah wanted ta tell you something.”
“What’s that?”
“Ah’m a mite sorry about that fight we had the other day. Ah guess Ah just let my human hormones get to me, or somethin’. Ah don’t know. All Ah know is Ah acted a fool.”
“To be honest, AJ…” Rainbow started. Applejack’s heart froze, and she shut her eyes in panic. This was it. This was the big chewing out that she deserved. She breathed in sharply, expecting the worst. “…I had completely forgotten about that.” AJ let out a huge breath and grinned.
“Water under the bridge, sugarcube?”
Rainbow Dash smiled. “Water under the bridge.”
AJ leaned over and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. Rainbow groaned. “So uncool.”
“Aww, hush it, you.” AJ pulled her closer, just loving the feeling of having her friend back.
“Holy crap!” a voice called, “You were right, Applejack. There’s two Rainbows!”
The two pony-girls pulled apart and looked up at the intruder. Scootaloo stood there gawking along with a very tired Spitfire. The human AJ and Rainbow Dash also approached, laughing and smiling.
“Okay, is that everyone?” Spitfire asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Yeah, that’s it,” replied Human-AJ.
“Alright, which one of you is the real Rainbow Dash?”
“That’d be me,” Human-Dash said hesitantly. Spitfire turned to face her.
“You have any idea what a chewing out you’re getting later?”
“Yeah…”
“By me, by the police, by your dad, and probably this young lady as well?” she shouted, pointing at Human-AJ.
“Hell yeah, she is,” the farm girl grumbled.
“Yeah…” Human-Dash said again.
“Well then, let me say first that I’m glad you’re alright,” Spitfire said, allowing herself to smile, “Come on, I want to get you to the hospital before I murder you.”