Divergence

by Seattle_Lite

Bereavement

Rainbow Dash lay atop the highest tower of a hidden castle, deep within the vast forest of Everfree. Legs curled comfortably underneath her, she gazed up to the night sky that cradled an immense moon. The smooth tile felt warm beneath her, and she drew in a deep breath of the cool night air. Her mind was unusually focused and still as she took in the beauty her vantage offered. It was strange... lately she’d been finding much more pleasure in the nighttime than she ever had before. The pinpricks of brilliance that dotted the sky were far more vivid than she’d realized, and the moon... the waxing moon now stirred something deeply inside of her, firing her blood almost as much as flight at breakneck speeds.

Despite the serene atmosphere, her thoughts were deeply troubled. Nothing was what it used to be. Things used to be simple. She had her friends, her dreams, and the sky. Now everything was getting so... complicated. She was used to tolerating the dislike of some ponies—those jerks in flight camp coming quickly to mind—but not trusting her? On the one hoof, she knew she had done the right thing those days ago on the cliff-side. She had saved her friends’ lives, of that she had no doubt, but their reservations stung deeply. Especially when they tried to hide it. Like Rarity.

She grimaced as an unwelcome thought occurred: Maybe... maybe it’s me. I was pretty excited about the whole Shadowbolts thing. Do they think that means I don’t care about them anymore? About what’s going on? Still... damn it, Rarity was such a mule! she thought plaintively, her muzzle crinkling. Did she think I couldn’t tell she wasn’t being for real? That I’m so dumb that I couldn’t tell she was just humoring me? As angry as the thought made her, and as good as that indignant anger felt, she just couldn’t hold on to it. After everything else, the most cutting feeling bearing down on her was that she was driving a wedge between the ponies she cared about the most.

Not to mention Twilight Sparkle... she didn’t know what to make of the bookworm at this point. The way she’d acted with Luna was just... nuts. Sure, the Celestia-gone-missing thing was freaky as hell, but Luna was not Nightmare Moon, and the Unicorn just couldn’t seem to get that through her head. Luna even gave Twilight the Elements, and then healed up AJ! What more does she want?!  Dash bit her lip; she was really starting to hope that Twilight wasn’t going to keep this up... even the brash Pegasus couldn’t imagine anypony getting all up in Celestia’s face like that, and she was worried Twilight was going to start pushing her luck.

 Dash rose with a nicker of irritation, shaking herself brusquely; she knew the best way to clear her head. Spreading her wings, she crouched low before launching herself with powerful hind legs straight over the precipice. As it always did, her heart gave a sudden lurch, a pulse of fear just begging to be overpowered by the flood of adrenaline rushing through her veins. With a  snap of her wings, she spiralled upwards into the air. As the wind rushed through her mane, she truly pitied the ponies who would never know the joy, the freedom, of flight. She privately doubted that even other Pegasi had quite the same intimacy with the sky that she did. She could almost see the flowing currents, the pockets of pressure ebbing around one another as they shifted in density. It wasn’t as though she recognized it by the signs and inferred the conditions, like they taught you to in the Weather Corps—she felt it.

Before she knew it, she was high above the castle, hovering idly on an updraft and looking out across the expanse of forest in all directions. She alit carefully on a string of cloud. It was a wispy stratus, so insubstantial it could barely support her, thin enough to glow brightly in the moonlight as if lit from the inside. Pegasus eyes are extremely sharp—though she didn’t recall her night vision ever being quite so acute before—so she could just make out the form of a lone Dragon stretched out by the bank of a lake in the far distance. Dragon eyes must be keener still, for as he turned his head toward her, she was pierced by the certainty that he was gazing straight up into her ruby eyes. Her blood froze in a moment of instinctual terror before she snapped out of it, flicking her ears in irritation.

She rose to her fullest height, puffing her chest out in the most impressive pose she could manage, and let out a squawk as the fragile cloud gave out beneath her. She recovered quickly, almost sure she’d put enough spiral into her descent before leveling off to make the move look intentional. Despite herself, she cast a glance to the far-off form of the dragon. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like his shoulders were quaking in... Is he laughing at me?! That’s it. I’m outta here, she thought, decidedly not pouting as she pulled a sharp bank, settling into a comfortable glide back in the general direction of the castle. As she descended in a lazy spiral, she could make out Luna and Fluttershy among the copse of trees, walking sedately along the bank of the stream. Lights were glowing from the windows of two rooms in the castle, and she wondered who else was up and about.

Twilight restlessly paced her room, the sharp crack of hooves on the bare stone was becoming grating. She grit her teeth and uttered a frustrated groan. She cast what was perhaps the thousandth glance at the pile of stone orbs resting on the small bed which, aside from a desk, was the only furniture in the room. These things are the Elements of Harmony? And where in Equestria was the sixth? And how the hay do they work? She had spent the last several hours focused intently on examining the stones, exhausting her fairly impressive repertoire of analytical and diagnostic spells, all to no avail. The most she had been able to ascertain was that these relics were extremely old, and highly potent in... something. They were more magic than stone, but their properties, aside from being individually unique, were unlike anything she’d ever encountered before. Whether or not these turned out to be the Elements of Harmony, they were incredibly significant artifacts in their own right, possibly among the most powerfully imbued items on record. Twilight was a very clever pony, and like most clever ponies, her inability to crack a vitally important puzzle was making her increasingly inclined to throw a tantrum.

The night was growing late, but the little pony cantering about her head showed no sign of slowing, shutting up, or ending the maddening circles it was prancing, despite how furiously she cursed herself. She had returned from an extended ‘discussion’ with Luna earlier in the evening, and those thoughts were the worst of the lot. In so many ways, she was reminded of Princess Celestia, and not merely in physical resemblance—Alicorns are fairly distinctive in appearance after all—but in sheer presence. She took the forced resemblance to her beloved mentor as an almost personal affront.

Her mind cast back, yet again, to the discussion. Luna had sat so primly; no matter what accusations Twilight had slammed at her, she just stayed so... calm. It was not only infuriating, it was downright suspicious, was what it was! Nopony should remain so unruffled when the order of Equestria had been turned up by the tail! The conversation—more like a lecture—had not unfolded in the way she would have liked...

Twilight stood before Luna, gaping as the stone orbs, supposedly the legendary Elements of Harmony, drifted over to settle on the grass at her hooves, released from Luna’s magic. She blinked, Five? There are only five! 
Narrowing her eyes, she looked back up to the smug, self-righteous Alicorn sitting before her. “Sooo sorry ‘Princess’, you can’t trick me that easily. There are six Elements of Harmony, not five dumb rocks,” she spat.

Luna raised a single brow at the irate filly.
“Oh. Well then, I tried. Good luck with all that,” came the sardonic reply.

Twilight bit her lip, but refused to take the bait, forcing her muddled wits to work once again. Pouring over what Luna had said just moments ago, she switched tracks and attacked, “You claim you didn’t ‘want to rule at all’? So what did you want then? Chaos and anarchy?”

Luna’s left ear twitched and she snorted, visibly irked at that.
“Anarchy? Let me get this straight: you’re saying that without a divine mandate at hoof and above your heads, you ponies would degenerate into chaos, madness and war? War for what? For bits? For land that you all share? You would believe that the virtues of friendship and harmony are lesser than greed and the compulsion to own?”

Luna’s voice turned hard as steel. “You listen to me carefully now, Twilight. I’ve witnessed the tragedy of other species that had begun walking those paths with good intentions, and each and every one inevitably hung themselves with their own avarice.”

The door to her room slammed in her wake; she couldn’t stay cooped up in that confining cell a moment longer. She briefly considered seeking out one of the others, but it was late and come to that, despite everything, she wasn’t entirely comfortable opening herself so fully to them—especially given that her own thoughts were so... chaotic. Which wasn’t to say she didn’t want to, which was all the more confusing! She had never been a very social pony, so the ease with which she found herself creating bonds with them was startling... Maybe if circumstances were different... She found her thoughts drawn to Rarity, the elegant mare who had protected her, stood up for her, and argued on her behalf against her longer-standing friends. Fluttershy... something about the timid Pegasus made Twilight’s heart melt; the depths of her kindness and compassion were almost beyond description, and she had tended to Twilight when she had been unconscious. Pinkie Pie was... well, an anomaly, but a darned captivating one. She was perhaps the single oddest creature Twilight had ever met, heard of, or read about. She was... fascinating, and a joy to be around. Applejack’s heart was simply golden, despite her ‘miscalculations’ about that other Pegasus. Applejack was a sturdy young mare, honest and true. Twilight’s ears laid back as her thoughts turned toward that other Pegasus.

Rainbow Dash. It was obvious now that she was the blight in an otherwise pure group—that she was not under some spell, or being compelled in some manner. She had chosen to side with evil, to be evil, and Twilight resolved to have her arrested, maybe even banished, the first chance she got.

 Aimlessly, she walked down the moonlit halls of the ancient castle, the intensely bright light of the moon pouring through evenly spaced windows providing more than enough illumination to see clearly. Twilight had always been an intensely curious pony, though her predilection for academics usually kept her away from more mischievous pursuits. Had it not, however, she may have had the benefit of past experience to warn her that venturing down into deeper and deeper recesses of the keep may not have been the wisest choice. Gritting her teeth, she stomped along the corridors, her hoof-falls echoing down the passages. Luna had taken her every argument and turned it around back at her like a... like a two-bit charlatan... 

Twilight was utterly incensed, her mane shining in the moonlight. 

“That is not what I’m saying! Good governance is the foundation of social order! How peace is maintained!” Twilight was hardly a student of the political sciences—in fact, she privately doubted ‘sciences’ was even a proper term for study—but she’d seen Princess Celestia at work: holding court, soothing wounded pride, and maintaining good relations with the dignitaries of neighboring states.

Luna didn’t hesitate to rejoin, her voice growing more animated than ever before, and Twilight marked herself a point for getting a rise out of her. “Social order?  Is that what you’re calling this meritocracy my sister has fostered? Competition between ponies is a wonderful method of self-improvement, but it is a terrible precept to stand as the foundation of a social structure! You think ponies should seek to better themselves by the exploitation of their fellows?  Look at the results: tell me who has managed to find seats closest to power. Sycophantic aristocrats! Their dreams are filled to the brim with nothing but their own ambition, greed, and desires for dominion over others. This is the manner of pony my sister would allow to rise above others? This mental sickness is worth reward? Insanity. The ethical devolution of such a system, once begun, is as inevitable as its own gathering momentum. ”

“Stop talking about Celestia like she’s a damned evil tyrant!” Twilight screamed.

Luna’s eyes went wide for a moment, before she broke down laughing. 

“Graaaah!” Twilight growled to herself as she stomped through the corridors. How dare that... that... winged cow imply that Celestia had fostered a predatory social structure, and that I’m complicit in it! Luna had maintained that it was by mere chance she had been born to parents wealthy enough to afford her enrollment in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and had things been different, her potential could have just as easily withered away in some Manehatten alley, or backwater rock farm. She had been prepared to argue the point with venom until Luna had looked to the sky, her heated tone fading, and spoke in a soft voice about feeling the dreams of the thousands of fillies and colts sharing that unhappy, and eminently unfair, fate at that very moment. In that melancholy moment, Luna had turned her back on Twilight without another word, walking away toward the brook in outright dismissal of the purple Unicorn.

She rounded a corner, still trying to shake the unwelcome feelings of empathy with the Princess’ closing statement.  Looking up and glancing around, she realized she’d come to a dead end, the ambient light almost nonexistent.
The corridor she found herself in was cavernous, dusty, and far darker than the halls by her room... running back through her mental map, she determined she was two staircases and three right turns from her quarters. With a flick of her horn, magic ignited, bathing the stone around her in a violet glow. Just ahead was a massive wooden door; the wood appeared extremely weathered with age, but still very solid. Further sparking her curiosity were the unique inlays on the aperture. Stepping closer, she tilted her head, her horn’s magic playing with the shadows of the carvings that ran along the wide frame. The sigils were etched deeply into the hardwood, curving in a runic language she didn’t recognize... which was decidedly odd, as she could at least identify most known languages, alive or dead.

Under normal circumstances, she was a mare who respected the privacy of others but these were not normal circumstances. Whatever that silver-tongued monster had locked away could well be the edge Twilight needed to gain the upper hoof! Hay, I’d settle for gaining an ‘even’ hoof at the moment. Glancing quickly over her shoulder to be sure she was still alone, Twilight turned back to focus on the door itself. Enveloping the round iron handle, she pulled; it didn’t even budge. Below the handle was a circular mechanism, with a hole in the center—a lock. Releasing the handle—a little too abruptly, the clang sending a metallic echo down the corridor behind her—she focused on the lock. She closed her eyes, allowing her magic to replace her visual senses, and she felt for the workings of the tumblers. One here, move it up. Another there, up again. This one? … Down. She carefully slid the pins within the lock about until a satisfying click came from the door.

Grinning in triumph, she again pulled on the door, and it swung open smoothly. Somepony had obviously kept it in good repair, for it neither creaked nor squealed on its hinges. Peering through the door, she saw nothing but an inky blackness that her magical light couldn’t seem to penetrate. It was as if there were a second door blocking her, one of a palpable darkness. Frowning, she cautiously stepped forward.

Her world turned white with pain, the sound of an electrical crack tearing through the air.

She found herself on her back, slowly recovering her senses on the unforgiving stone floor several feet from the door. “Uhhh, what the?” she muttered aloud. Rolling to her side and raising her head, she looked ahead, and saw faint lines of magical current flickering across the blackness behind the door. A shield spell then. One the likes of which she had never encountered before. Working her limbs to shake off the tingling aftereffects, she shakily regained her hooves, pondering this turn of events. Okay... no touchy. 

Cautiously, she eased closer, until she was just outside the frame. She detached the light spell from her horn, sticking it on the wall to her right, where it would glow independently for at least an hour.  Her horn began to shine anew as she carefully exerted a blanket of sensory magic against the ward. Both energies crackled in protest at the contact, but she ignored the visual display, trying to get a feel for its constitution. It was incredibly strong, tightly woven, and... far beyond her ability to break.  At least... outright, she thought, an idea forming. A grin slid across her muzzle as she adjusted the application of her magic from a wide, flat surface to finely-honed vibrating probes, searching for weak spots in the weave. Expanding her senses totally into her magic, she felt for something... anything... There! In one spot, the size of a needle point, was a weakness. Focusing onto it, she began the arduous task of loosening the weave, while pushing her own purple magics into the widening gap. The energies of the barrier crackled in protest, but Twilight kept at it, sweat dripping from her brow as she poured her will into the task.

Refusing to relent, she continued to pick, and dig, and strain against the ward, the task no easier than trying to whittle through sheet rock with a file. Tapping into what little of her magical reserves remained, she at last managed to create a hole that she could squeeze through, if just barely. She reinforced it as much as she could, fairly certain it would hold out while she was inside, as long as she didn’t linger. She didn’t want to contemplate having to go through that all over again. Taking a deep breath, she crouched down and shimmied through the hole into the room beyond.

She had never seen anything like this before. The domed chamber was entirely circular, the only right angles to be found were where high walls met the floor. The barrier spell covered every inch, making the surface appear to have been constructed of solid obsidian. The flowing script she had seen on the door was everywhere, glowing a golden light and softly illuminating the room. The only adornment in the room was directly in the center: a small stone table, and on it stood a statue. It was a small, jet-black effigy of an Alicorn, head and horn raised high, wings stretched to their full length. Baffled, Twilight looked about, marvelling at the most potent array of containment magics she had ever seen. All of this, for a statuette? Could it be some kind of weapon? Cautiously, she moved toward the centerpiece for a better look. She froze as a horrifyingly familiar voice filled the room.

“Well well... a visitor. How lovely.”

Recoiling, Twilight spun back toward the door and her tiny exit.

Laughter echoed through the room as smokey tendrils erupted from the statue and wrapped about her neck. In the blink of an eye, Twilight had been lifted off her hooves and slammed hard into the far wall, held high above the floor. In that contact, she felt her mind flayed, an alien presence sorting contemptuously though her memories.

The voice was filled with unbridled delight.

“Oh my, this is an occasion! Celestia’s own private little pet has come calling, to be graced with my presence once again. And still so very deluded! Well little one, shall I ease your troubled mind before I feed you your own horn? Very well... everything you suspect about Luna is correct, almost. We may not be the same being, but everything I’ve done has been by her will! As for your greatest fear- it’s true. Oh, yes, Celestia is dead; I tore off her wings, one after the other, before slitting her pompous throat! The blood of a goddess is heady wine indeed!” the voice crowed before breaking into maniacal laughter.

Twilight choked off a sob of denial, her small body struggling against the bonds.

“Oh, now, don’t be like that! Just look at you, so pathetic, so innocent, so... pure. You make me sick!”

The magic about her throat tightened, Twilight felt her larynx began to creak under the pressure, before it suddenly eased off. Her relief was short-lived.

“Oh... why yes, Luna, that is a wonderful idea! Let’s show this little filly a thing or two about lost innocence.”

Twilight cast her eyes about the room, expecting to see Luna standing there, laughing down at her, but saw nothing. She didn’t have long to ponder this new oddity as the magic holding her turned viciously sharp, the vice-like pressure now slicing into her neck like talons. The sudden flood of pain overwhelmed her senses and crushed any attempt at coherent thought.
 
Twilight's eyes shot wide as her limbs were gripped and spread painfully wide. Independent tendrils of the black force began sliding down her back and up her ribs, leaving long, thin, white-hot cuts in their wake, in a sordid mockery of a caress. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she felt the magic move lower, around her flanks and about her haunches... her inner haunches, lacerating her flesh as her thighs were pulled widely apart.

 ...No.  No.  No no no!  Please!  No!  STOP!  NO!  PLEASE!  

She tried to scream, but the vice of magic that held her by the throat was so tight she could hardly draw breath. Twilight knew she was going to die, but before being granted that grace, this creature was going to subject her to something much worse. She’d never imagined a situation where she would find having her neck broken to be a preferable alternative.

As her terror reached a frenzied peak, something inside her snapped. Her mind went blank and her vision blurred into a searing light.

The Nightmare was enjoying itself vastly. It had been denied everything. Then, like a dream on a silver platter, in strolled the treasured student of the second-most loathsome creature on the planet. It was too perfect. It didn’t expect the game to last long; the little Unicorn was far too fragile, but it had every intention of exacting as much pain and sordid pleasure from the pathetic little beast as possible, before tearing her to shreds. Perhaps it would paint the walls of this damnable chamber with her blood when it was all over. Then something happened. The Unicorn ceased struggling, the delicious outpouring of her terror and panic cut off like a closed tap, and was replaced by something utterly unexpected. Power. And it burned, pouring out of the purple filly in waves the Nightmare had never known mortal ponies to be capable of. Utterly unprepared for the assault, the magic holding Twilight simply evaporated, and it quickly retreated its essence to within the ironically protective confines of the cursed statuette.

Twilight found herself lying on the floor, the taste of blood thick in her mouth. Her entire body was on fire from the multitude of cuts. She didn’t know what had just happened, and at the moment, she couldn’t care less. All she knew what that this thing that had planned to rape and kill her was now screaming in pain, and filling the room with vile threats of her slow and bloody dismemberment. She bolted for the door—her burrowed tunnel through the barrier still holding—and frantically scrambled through it. Skidding around, she wrenched her magic away from the barrier and watched it instantly snap back into place, whole and solid. An unholy screech filled the corridor, and the black barrier flared, the arcane ruins around the door frame bursting to golden life, as something slammed against it hard enough to shake dust from the ceilings. Twilight turned tail and ran for her life, leaving a spattered trail of blood in her wake.

In a blind panic, Twilight galloped all-out, almost instinctively retracing her steps back up to her room. Bursting through the door and slamming it behind her, she threw her weight against it, her chest heaving with sobs. I have to get out of here. NOW. Nothing else mattered in this moment but to put as much distance between this place and her very-violated self as possible. No more doubts.  ‘Luna’, or whatever in the four ponyhells she was, was a deceiver of godly skill and that thing in the basement—a violent shudder racked through her—was her servile monster, and she was done with this nightmare. She rushed over to her bed, fumbling about with her saddlebags, increasingly shaky as the bolstering adrenaline in her blood faded. The painful aching of her battered body was coming to the fore as she hobbled about.

A knock resounded on the door and she let out a scream of surprise, spinning around. Frozen, she could neither move nor speak. The petrified moment drew out, unbearably. Had it come for her?

A concerned voice came through the door, “Darling? Are you alright in there? What was that sound? I’m coming in!”

Rarity pushed through the door, stepping inside. She stopped dead as she took in the sight of Twilight, backed up against the far wall and cringing in terror. The purple mare’s pupils were shrunken to pinpricks as she stared unblinking at the other Unicorn. It was a moment before Rarity recovered enough to actually take note of Twilight’s appearance - her coat was littered with small cuts, circling her neck like a noose, long slices running the length of her midsections and... oh goddess...  trickles of blood were running down the inside of her haunches, the liquid darkening her violet coat to a near-black color. The bookish Unicorn looked more like a blank-flanked filly, her tears flowing unchecked, running rivulets down her muzzle. She was trembling like a leaf.

In a rush, Twilight was all over her, clinging to her with desperate strength and bawling her heart out. Rarity’s coat was getting horribly stained from Twilight’s seeping wounds, but such was her concern that she didn’t notice. “Oh! By Celestia’s Grace Twilight! What has happened to you?!”

Between heaving sobs, Twilight choked out, “We... have to get out... of here. Now! Before it gets out!”

“Before what gets out dear?”

“It! Whatever Luna has down there, it’s evil! It’s pure evil, and I saw it, and it saw me, and it got me, and almost... almost... Oh goddess, Rarity, you have to help me!”

“Darling, breathe! It will be alright, I promise, but we can’t just leave the others! Fluttershy is still talking with Luna, and we have to tell Apple—“

“No Rarity! Please! There’s no time! Applejack is wrapped around Dash’s hoof, you saw how they are together! And Dash, Dash is with her!”

“Twilight, you may be right... maybe... about Rainbow Dash, but we simply cannot leave without a word to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie!”

“Rarity, going to get them right now would be suicide! Fluttershy is with Luna right now! And we haven’t seen Pinkie Pie since we got here; she just disappeared and started exploring! It’s impossible, and I can’t stay here another second, I just can’t!”

Rarity’s lip was clenched between her teeth, her ears laid back. The position she found herself in was beyond untenable, but a choice had to be made. Twilight was leaving, with or without her.  
“...Very well, Twilight, but I must at the least leave them a note, and gather my things. I’ll be right back,” she assured as she spun and galloped out of the room and down the hall.

Twilight turned and tore the blanket off her bed, ripping it crudely with shakily-controlled magic into small strips, wiping her blood away with some, and doing her best to tie makeshift bandages around her wounds with the others. She nearly retched wrapping the cuts all about her inner haunches. Twilight then turned to her own belongings, stuffing as many of the stone artifacts into her saddlebags as would fit, which turned out to only be four, and just barely—Rarity would have to pack the other one.

She tensed and perked an ear at the sound of rapidly approaching hooves. Rarity barreled back through the door, saddlebags strapped and ready to go. “I’ve left a note for Fluttershy in her room. I absolutely abhor the idea of leaving without her, but... she is a Pegasus. With any luck, she’ll be able to find Pinkie Pie and slip out without anypony the wiser.”

The pair edged down the corridors toward the main entrance, saddlebags bulging with their precious cargo. Finding the brilliance of the moonlight no ally, they stayed to the pooling shadows as best they could, wincing every time an errant hoof came down too sharply on the stone floors. The pair soon came to the massive antechamber, peeking about before they exited the corridor; the huge double-doors on the far side the final obstacle to their escape. Mid-way across the room, an explosion from below rocked through the castle, and a blaring clarion-call filled the air. They heard the clattering of hooves coming from an adjacent hallway, picking up speed. Luna came into sight down a far hall, about to enter the chamber, looking slightly alarmed and none too pleased. She caught sight of Twilight immediately. “What have you done?!” she demanded, her voice booming.

“Rarity, get the doors open, quick!” Twilight screamed. Panicking and out of time, she wrapped her magic around the support structures above the corridor Luna was in, and with all her strength, pulled.
The stone archway between Luna and the main room collapsed. It was only as she spread her wings in alarm that Twilight thought she caught a glimpse of a pink-maned and yellow-coated Pegasus cowering behind her. Then the passage was sealed with stone rubble, a thick dust filling the air.
Oh goddess! Was Fluttershy with her? 
“Twilight, hurry!” Rarity called out, just as the sound of glass shattering came from above. Rainbow Dash had burst through a high window, looking for all the world to Twilight like an angel of black death in her uniform, as she curved sharply in the air above the war-torn room.
“What in the hell is going—HEY!” she began, before being cut off by a searing bolt of purple energy from Twilight that blasted past her, close enough to sear her armored side. Her evasive maneuver had cost her what limited lift she’d been able to maintain in the close quarters, and she barrel-rolled down to the floor.

Dash landed heavily, fully prepared to tear out after the pair of psychopaths that had just bolted through the main doors, when her perked ears caught a whimper of pain. It had come from a pile of rubble to her left, all that remained of what had once been a hallway. Rainbow Dash lifted a hoof to her mouth, coughing in the heavy dust, and her blood turned to ice as she made out a mangled yellow wing sticking out of the rubble.

Chapter 4 - “Foresight”
← 
Chapter 6 - “Gravity”
→