Rainbow Dash saw stars as she collided with Rarity, tumbling end over end on the ground and landing with her muzzle tangled up in her friends mane. Her body ached and some of Twilight's exhaustion still seemed to be plaguing her, as she started to push herself off of the ground. She felt heavier somehow, though getting her own body back after having been fused with Armstrong was an obvious enough reason to be feeling out of it.
“Ow! Rainbow Dash, let go of me!” Rarity seemed rather annoyed, and Rainbow double checked just to make sure none of her hooves were stepping on Ms. Rarity's flank. Of course, nothing was below her but dirt.
“I'm not even touching you!” She replied, pushing away, and finding the entire left half of her body seemed to refuse to move, “Oh no, what now...” She stopped talking as her head tilted slightly to the left, right into Rarity's eyes, which seemed to be nearly bursting out of their sockets. More interestingly, Rainbow didn't seem to pull any further away from her friend, and it took her moments to realize why not.
Rarity's neck, as well as her own, had become attached to the same body! Rather, their bodies had merged into one another, Rarity's white coat covering only their left side, as now Rainbow Dash had control of only the right side of their own body. In their shock, they hadn't noticed Ms. Armstrong attempting to make her exit, or Applejack rushing to stop her. Instead, the two of them screamed out, trying to pull away from the other, before losing balance and falling back onto Rainbow's side. The weight of her friend laying upon only half of her body was more than she had been prepared to deal with, everything felt new at that moment.
“Oh my gosh! Rainbow Dash, Rarity, are you ok-aaaaaa-,” Pinkie Pie's 'okay' extended far longer than it needed to as she came upon her two friends all mixed up, before letting out the loudest gasp she could manage, “You're, you're... you're...” They glared at Pinkie with anticipation, already knowing what her reaction to their situation was going to be, “You're so funny looking!” She burst out into laughter, giggling even as the others could see ice frosting over the windows of Fluttershy's home.
“Where did Armstrong go, Pinkie?! Why's the house freezing up?!” Rainbow Dash yelled out, looking around as suddenly her predicament seemed less important. Applejack was no where to be seen, and most of Fluttershy's critters stood around their home, watching on as large ice crystals began poking out of the opened door.
Pinkie Pie had begun bouncing around the two of them, her eyes shut to the world around and filling all of their ears with her laughter. Rainbow groaned, and slowly turned her head, hoping to see that her sudden change had merely been a weird vision of her mind. It was not. She shut her eyes, and stretched out her wings, or rather, the single wing that they now had on her side of their body.
“Pinkie? Dear, I don't think now is really the right time...” Rarity's voice shook as she spoke, trying to take in everything that had just happened, staring down at where her right shoulder should have been, and instead was the pont where bother hers and Dash's necks connected to the same torso. Pinkie's squeals had only grown in intensity as she bounced around them.
“But look at you guys! You're stuck together! Like two balls of dought that you just... mushed up between your hooves!” Her laughter had started to become grating, where moments earlier it had seemed triumphant.
“Pinkie, what about Applejack?! Or Twilight, or Fluttershy?! We can't just let Armstrong get away!” Rainbow Dash looked up at Fluttershy's home, and tried to run toward it, only to nearly trip over herself.
“I-I-I'm sorry! This is to -hehehe!- funny to ignore!” Her eyes had been kept shut the whole time, her laughter obscuring any sounds around them. Rainbow Dash couldn't believe hat Pinkie Pie would simply forget about her friends just to laugh about their, admittedly ridiculous, situation.
Rarity, on the other hand, had remained mostly silent as she looked on at the house. The ice had made its way outside of the windows, crawling up the walls and building a layer of snow upon the roof, “Come on Pinkie, you're starting to freak me out here!” Rainbow Dash's words were always quite blunt, and she had seen first hand what Pinkie could be like when things began to go wrong for her.
The pink pony didn't seem to be listening any longer, however, lost in her own little world as she mused to herself about Siamese ponies. Rainbow Dash spoke up again, though nothing she said seemed to get through even slightly.
WHAP
The sound echoed throughout the forest as Rarity brought her hoof across Pinkie's cheek, “Pinkie Pie!” She yelled out. Rainbow's eyes went wide, and Pinkie Pie stopped her bouncing, opening her eyes to look upon the concerned faces of her friends. There was a long moment of silence between them all, before Rarity finally spoke again, “I think Applejack is inside of Fluttershy's home. I don't see her around anywhere and,” She took a deep breath, “We can't move quickly enough. You need to go into town, get the doctors, bring as many ponies as you can to help.”
Pinkie Pie turned toward the house, glancing thoughtfully at it and exposing a cheek that had reddened slightly. She gave a small sniffle, “Okie dokie lokie...” She spoke at barely more than a whisper before turning back toward Ponyville, “What... what do you think happened to Fluttershy? And Twilight? And and... I just let Applejack run in there alone and...”
As she started her slow trot back, Rarity spoke up again, “It's alright dear.... I'm scared too. We all are.”
“Ha! Speak for yourself!” Admittedly, Rainbow Dash just felt a small amount of relief to see Pinkie calmed down, if only for the moment. Rarity just glared at her, which she returned with an embarrassed smile.
“You guys stay right there then! I'll be back faster than you can say 'pudding pie'!”
“Pudding pie...?”
Pinkie Pie gasped, “You said it! I'm running late!” She bolted back off toward town, leaving the merged Rainbow Dash and Rarity to stare at one another in confusion.
“You think she'll be alright?”
“Of course! All she needed was a good slap to bring her back to reality. Works every time.”
“You slap her a lot?”
“...No, but it usually works in novels.”
There was a moment of silence between them, for once even Rainbow Dash was speechless though her mind had also been clouded by the massive fatigue she had been forced to suddenly endure. Finally she put one hoof forward, “I don't suppose you know any magic that can separate us?”
“I've been working on my magic a little, but it's hardly anything that could fix.... this.”
They both let out a small sigh, Rainbow putting one hoof to her forehead. As the situation had begun to calm, it had started to throb ever so slightly, “Should we... I don't know, should we try and follow behind Pinkie Pie? I don't know if I want to stay here anymore...”
“We'd probably just slow her down, even if we could catch up to her by now.” Rarity said, just before attempting to put her own hoof's forward, “I suppose it doesn't hurt to try and get back into town... Oh dear, when Sweetie Belle sees us like this.” Rainbow caught on to what she was doing, and tried moving along in turn with her friend. It was difficult to get moving, and even once they had, the speed was infuriatingly slow. Their walk was unstable at best, often times stopping for several seconds at a time just to regain balance or breathing.
“Can't we pick up the pace a little?” She finally asked, a smile growing on her features as she decided to move her working legs into a trot. She had to force herself to move quicker as her body rebelled against her. The growing migraine in her head didn't help either, and the only thing she wanted to do was speed through the cool night air.
Naturally Rarity hadn't been expecting a sudden shift in their already shaky walk, and the two of them quickly lost the pace they had started, and nearly went face first into the mud, “Careful! Stuck with you or not, if my mane gets ruined I'm going to force you to help me redo it!”
Rainbow Dash glared, “What?! No way! That takes like two hours, and I am going no where near your vanity!”
“You won't have a choice if we're still stuck like this.” Rarity's eyes narrowed, as did Rainbow Dash's. Their teeth began to show, clenched together with an anger that the two of them were dying to let loose.
Within moments, they started laughing. The ridiculousness of their situation had finally become too much for either of them, and instead of screaming, they found themselves kneeling to the ground and throwing their heads to the stars. Nearly a full minute passed as the two of them slowly started to calm.
“Well I feel better.” Rarity said, offering her friend a smirk.
“Ugh, I think my head's gonna explode. It's been killing me since I got out of that jerk's head,” Rainbow Dash rubbed her forehead with a hoof, and took a deep breath, “How are we going to save Twilight and Fluttershy?”
Silence.
“I...I was hoping you might have some idea of what was going on, admittedly.”
More silence.
“Only whatever I heard when I was in Armstrong's brain.”
Rarity gave her a confused look, “You keep calling her that.”
“She said her name to us!”
“Well yes but, I doubt any of us actually remembered it after seeing what she did to Fluttershy.”
Rainbow Dash started to push them back onto their hoof's, “I saw a bunch of stuff in her head. I guess things like her name just got engraved. I don't know. The point is, I still have no idea how we're going to split ourselves apart, where Fluttershy and Twilight got sent off to, and whether or not Applejack's alright!” Her frustration was practically visible.
“Alright dearie, alright... let's just focused on getting back to normal right now. It doesn't do anyone any good to stress yourself so much.” She hardly sounded convinced of her own words, especially as one very large stressor hung over them both.
“Hey guys! Twilight just ran off, is Fluttershy okay?!” Both of them recognized Spike's voice immediately as his small visage ran toward them from the road into town, “Pinkie seemed really...” Spike stopped talking as he came closer to the two ponies, before immediately falling over in a fit of uproarious laughter, “What happened to you?!”
Neither wanted to be the first one to speak, knowing that his laughter was going to end as soon as the severity of the situation was brought to him. Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, “Spike...”
“Wait wait wait... let me guess... Discord?” Spike straightened himself up, “If he's back, then I'll do whatever I can to help out.” He tried to act tough, before laughing again.
Rarity tried next, “Spike? Dear... we need-”
He couldn't stop himself, the image of Rainbow Dash stuck to Rarity was too good to pass up, even if there was probably some kind of big bad pony running amok, “Luckily for you guys, two heads are better than one, right?!” His giggle fits were almost adorable, which made what the two of them had to do just that much more difficult.
Each put their front hoof on Spike's shoulders, “Spike, there's something you need to know. Appleack may be in trouble, and... Fluttershy and Twilight are gone.” Rarity spoke as quickly as she could, as though pulling a bandage.
Spike's laughter stopped, “W-what?”
----
Explaining the situation to Spike proved to be even more painful than the two of them had worried. After hearing what Armstrong had done, he had spent nearly a minute in silence, just staring at the ground. They had no idea where the others were, or whether or not Applejack would even be alright. By the time he spoke again, they could already hear several hoofbeats approaching, Pinkie had made great timing.
“We should go to Celestia! She'll know what to do, right?” Spike suggested, looking up at the two of them, “At the very least, she'll be able to point us in the right direction!”
It was the best idea that either of them had heard so far, “Well, Luna was the one who came into our dreams to warn us.” Rarity replied.
Rainbow Dash perked up, “She probably knows where Twilight and Fluttershy are!”
Rarity thought to tell her not to get her hopes up too much, but at this point a bit of blind optimism was welcome. She smiled, “Well then, once we get Applejack out, we'll go on the next train to Canterlot.”
Spike's demeanor seemed to rise somewhat as his idea was agreed upon. He knew they all respected him as a friend, but it was still nice from time to time to know his insight could be appreciated.
Besides that, Pinkie Pie came bouncing back, flanked on either side by several earth ponies and unicorns, she even managed to get four nurse ponies out with her, “Girls girls girls girls girls, guuuuuess what? I got help!” Everypony she had brought got to work immediately, taking only a few brief moments to glance in shock at Fluttershy's home, before pulling out their tools, quite literally going to chisel their way through the home to get to Applejack.
It was far from an ideal situation, but for the first time that night the four of them felt as if they had started to pull things back into their control.