These are the ending days of our time...
Cities have crumbled in your absence.
And just when you feel your people need you more than ever,
You soon find out they don’t need you at all anymore.
Why nurture something that no longer exists?
At first they understand that you’re gone, then they wonder where you are, then they go without you.
They take your spots in life away.
Harmony vanishes, but they’ll be fine
For a little while.
You have a question on your mind.
You ask who I am and what I want from you.
I am nothing to one, but a threat to all.
Try as you may, you shall never destroy me.
In fact, one day you’ll feel blessed that I am here.
But listen now while I have your weary subconscious pinned down.
Friends of mine have gone to find the ones you care for.
Flying to the clouds, they’ll hit their target.
I’ll make sure they hit their target.
The city in the clouds hangs peacefully for few hours more.
The ones up there will suffer no more, yet slumber in serenity.
“Toa, stand up—you were dreaming.” An unfamiliar voice shook the pegasus from her nightmare. Unlike the voice that haunted her in her sleep, this one sounded as if it wanted to soothe her.
Her vision hazy, the felt herself coming up on her hooves—which, as she quickly came to notice, felt much heavier and stiffer than she would have preferred. Her eyes stung as she struggled to open them a bit more.
A purple-and-blue mist solidified before Rainbow Dash’s eyes, revealing an old friend—one whom she thought she’d never see again. By her friend’s side stood a red, bestial figure—the likes of which would have made the pegasus flinch, were it not for Twilight standing by its side. Even so, the differences in Twilight’s appearance shocked her.
“T-Twilight?” she stammered. A good amount of blue armor concealed the pony she once knew, but Dash still managed to make out who stood before her, even now. “Twilight—wh-what happened to you?”
But her unicorn friend didn’t seem to hear the question. “Oh, Rainbow Dash—I’m so glad you’re okay!”
“Okay?” said the pegasus with a yawn. “But—but Twilight, that’s not what I was asking! I’m fine; what in Celestia’s name happened to you?”
At that moment, Twilight understood to what her friend referred. With a sigh, she confessed, “Something’s happened to all of us, Rainbow. We’ve all turned into what the Rahaga call Toa.”
“Indeed.” The short, red figure beside Twilight spoke up. “And you especially, Toa of Fire—you’ve been more inflicted than any of your friends, I’m afraid.”
Curious, confused, concerned, the pegasus raised an eyebrow. “Wh-what do you mean I’ve been more inflicted? I feel fine—honestly!” A warm, genuine smile crossed her face.
Her lips pursed, Twilight inhaled and explained her dilemma. “Rainbow Dash—you were more affected by Makuta than any other one of us. I saw when Roodaka blasted you with dark energy, sending you back down into the silver ocean just as the rest of us started drowning. Next time I saw you, you were trapped inside a crystal—but unlike the rest of us, you couldn’t escape.” Her eyes shining with the thought, Twilight bent her head low, coming almost nose-to-nose with her friend. Her friend came barely above a whisper when she said, “Rainbow—we thought you had died.” And with those final words, she bent her head downward, biting her lip as she struggled to fight back pouring tears.
Norik continued from where the Toa of Water had left off. “I thought we would have had to go without a Toa of Fire to lead your friends. The other Rahaga and I even thought that the Makuta had overwhelmed you completely—but you seemed to have overcome the darkness completely. It’s a miracle, if I’ve ever seen one.”
Sniffling a little, Twilight wiped her eyes and explained, “But you still have the darkness of Makuta with you. It may very well live in you forever.” The shades of dark red in her armor proved that point well enough on their own.
The curiosity lingering in Rainbow Dash’s mind collapsed on itself and turned into fear. “But—what does that mean if now I’ll have to live with Makuta forever? What’s gonna happen? Am I…gonna turn into a monster or something?”
“I don’t think so,” Twilight began, “but let’s think about it—because Fluttershy practically had the same thing happen to her while we were still in Equestria. It started off with nightmares, but then she eventually began started going insane—and after a while, she almost—”
And then she halted, knowing it would do no good to go over her friend's traumatic experience.
Twilight’s mid-sentence pause made Dash’s heart leap. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What did she almost do?”
She almost attacked us. The thought made Twilight gulp—for how could she possibly break this to Rainbow Dash? What scares me worse is the fact that Rainbow now has the powers of fire at her disposal. If she so chooses, she could destroy an entire town—or worse, commit an act of murder. Thinking about this made sweat drip from the side of her head.
Difficult as it was to give a straight answer to Rainbow Dash, Norik cleared his throat and said, “Perhaps we should go downstairs at this point.” He turned his gaze toward the pegasus. “Your friends are probably most anxious to see you after at least a day.” And with that, the Rahaga began down a flight of stairs; the two ponies followed suit.
I’ve been asleep for a day? she thought, her steps slow compared to Twilight’s. Did those nightmares keep me asleep for that long of a time?
Her pupils dilated minutely as thoughts of last night crossed her mind. She could remember hardly anything of those nightmares, could hardly make out whatever images her subconscious mind dared thrust upon her. All she could remember was chaos—chaos that had left a lasting impact on her even after the night.
That voice—who was that? What was it I heard about Cloudsdale? It had something to do with a threat against Cloudsdale, didn’t it? If it doesn’t, that must mean— That’s when it hit her.
“The new Daring-Do book!” Her voice reverberated throughout the tower.
The sound of the echoes proved enough to make Twilight wince. Turning her head around, she asked, “What about the new Daring-Do book?”
Realizing how loudly those words blurted out of her, Rainbow Dash covered her mouth with her hoof and chuckled, “Sorry; it’s just that I had this weird dream last night and it had something to do with a cloud city being attacked.”
It took a moment for Twilight to draw the connection—but in a matter of heartbeats, her face lit up in a bright smile. “Say no more—The Forbidden City of Clouds!”
“Aw, yeah!” Rainbow Dash snickered. “Sorry for freaking you out there.”
“It’s fine,” replied Twilight. “But come on—all our friends have been dying to see you again.”
Rainbow Dash had almost completely forgotten about that. “Oh—right!” Without further ado, the pegasus felt a jolt of energy flow through her as she went on a race downstairs.
As she watched her friend go, Twilight chuckled and turned her gaze toward Norik. “You’ll have to forgive her; she can be quite the fangirl when it comes to Equestrian literature.”
During all this, the Rahaga of Fire remained silent and merely watched as Twilight ran after Rainbow Dash down the stairs. During this time, he couldn’t help but wonder, What did I just see happen? But before it could disturb him any further, he shook his head and started coming down the stairs at a snail’s pace.
At the base of the Rahaga’s tower, some of the ponies and elders sat around and conversed while others pondered. While Pinkie spoke endlessly with Iruni, others stared off into space, wondering where to go from here, how to defeat Makuta with their newfound abilities, or if Rainbow Dash had yet awoken. Of them all, Fluttershy delved deepest into her thoughts.
Some of the others merely delved off into space, whereas Fluttershy peered into the depths of oblivion.
I wonder where Teridax is now. He doesn’t seem comfortable around me like he once was. She paused and closed her eyes, breathing slowly as if she were meditating. Through closed eyes, she pointed her gaze downward; little did the pony know, she also started bending downward, as if she were about to fall asleep. Before long, her nose hovered only inches off the ground.
By the time she opened her eyes, Fluttershy noticed a little dweller upon the floor. Robotic in build and in nature, the creature retained a foreign appearance in Fluttershy’s eyes—but robotic or not, she could see the animal for what it really was: a little black spider. It seemed as if it had been forever since she’d last seen anything of the sort.
By instinct, and not as a means of showing care, the Toa of Ice greeted the little animal.
“Hello.”
The word came out wrong—and she knew it. She knew it so well that her face turned pink upon uttering the simple word. How did she mess that up?
Her usual greetings established the sweet, caring personality her friends knew her for—presented a perfect salutation to whichever creature she found herself standing before. In her current scenario, Fluttershy’s hello played as poorly as the tune of an untrained choir.
Yet the spider didn’t seem to mind, nor did it seem to even notice the yellow-and-white figure looming over it. On the contrary, the black creature seemed content only with finding a good meal for the evening.
“Hello?”
Again, her greeting hit all the wrong notes—as if one day without practice had rendered her completely unskilled in the art of animal communication.
As Fluttershy played these worrisome thoughts within her head, she heard as three of her friends rushed over to the other side of the room. Their rambunctious excitement settled in the back of her ear, but she paid it no heed. She instead focused on the spider.
For a good while, the eight-legged creature wandered here and there on the floor, as if luck would bring its prey to its mouth. Fluttershy watched it move around and about, though she found that even still she could not seem to catch the creature’s attention. On a normal day, this would have led her to using the dreaded stare—but today, even when her frustrations outweighed her joys, she felt no need to resort to such drastic measures.
Much to her surprise, the spider—in the midst of its supposed hunt—took a sharp turn and started making its way toward Fluttershy’s hoof. Her eyes widened and her breath still, the Toa of Ice took a closer look at her hoof as the spider’s legs tickled the base of her leg.
“You’re curious, aren’t you?” she wondered, feigning a smile. “Careful, Mr. Spider—I don’t know much about how my powers work yet.” The longer she stared down at the arachnid, the further up her leg it traveled. The further up her leg it traveled, the more she began to suspect some form of sentience within the bug's mind.
That’s odd, she thought. Interacting with this little bug felt similar to with bonding any other animal back in Ponyville—but deep within the recesses of her mind, she could hear a tiny voice telling her to run away—to fear the tiny beast and do whatever she could to distance herself from it.
It almost seemed logical for a part of her to be afraid of the spider, considering she’d never mingled with any creature of the sort back in Equestria. In all honesty, the pony could not find any logical reason for her having avoided these little insectoid animals.
Yet she found it only reasonable to believe the spider’s supposed sentience was the cause for the foreign sense of panic now invading her thoughts. Was is possible for something as harmless as a tiny spider to bring these feelings to her? As much as other ponies hated spiders, Fluttershy never saw any reason to fear them until now.
Fluttershy—
A familiar voice came crawling back into her head. She recognized the voice, she knew from whom the words came—yet she still felt the need to ask, Who—who are you?
Don’t play games with me, Fluttershy, the voice responded. No matter how hard you may try, you will be beyond!
At that moment, Fluttershy’s pupils dilated. She looked down at the spider crawling up her arm—noticing as all eight of its eyes seemed to lock in on the two of hers.
“No,” she whispered. Her head started shaking at the mere thought of it. “No. No! No!” As those words escaped her, Fluttershy smashed her hoof against the floor, causing the spider to lose its foothold on her hoof. Down to the floor it fell, landing belly-side-up, unable to get back on its feet.
This is the end of you, said the Toa. This is the last time I’ll ever have to see you! Her teeth clenched together as she began driving her hoof back down to the floor. The shadow of her hoof waxed over the spider as it looked up, breathless and unmoving.
This time her hoof made an unmistakable thud as it pounded downward. If the first smash caught everyone’s attention, the second one pulled a gasp out of every one of her Equestrian friends. And little did Fluttershy realize, the others had had their eyes on her for the past few seconds; they had stood by as their friend drove the final blow to end the spider’s life.
Once the loud thud died down, the room went silent. All the merriment over Rainbow Dash’s awakening suddenly disappeared in that one moment.
The silence rushed over Fluttershy’s body like a blizzard as she lifted her gaze from her hoof and looked up toward all the others.
“F-Fluttershy?” stammered Twilight. “Did you just—kill that spider?”
The pegasus’ lips pursed. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t know what to say to Twilight in such an instance. Her emotions would cloud her thoughts and she would be left to do hardly anything more than babbling and stuttering. Now with these new powers of ice blurring who she once was, Fluttershy knew the truth. “Yes,” she replied. “I did—I think I did.”
Some of her friends gasped once more and took a few steps back. This wasn’t the Fluttershy they’d come to know over the years; this was a machine made to fight at the side of another Toa. A thousand scenarios flowed through their minds as they made this great epiphany. Some would have considered Fluttershy’s newfound strength as a positive in this barren environment; others would have scurried and pushed themselves out of the way at the thought.
Another moment of silence slipped between the ponies before Fluttershy finally saw Rainbow Dash standing in the crowd with the rest of her friends. At that moment, her ears perked and she removed her hoof from atop the annihilated spider. “Oh—Rainbow Dash!” she said. “I didn’t notice you were awake.”
Dash thought she saw a smile on the pegasus’ face, but she paid it no heed. “Yeah,” she began. “I’m awake. You would’ve known if you weren’t so busy killing the things you always say you care about.”
One of the pony’s ears twitched. Killing the things I care about? She looked down at the spider once more, witnessing its crushed remains. I care about many things, Rainbow Dash, she wanted to tell her friend. But I no longer care for Makuta! She took a look back up at Rainbow Dash, feeling the pegasus’ red eyes piercing into hers. Had she felt any sense of intimidation from this Toa, Fluttershy more than likely would have pointed a sharp stare through Rainbow’s eyes.
But before Fluttershy’s stare could encapsulate anybody, Norik broke the silence. “Now then,” he began, acting as though the Equestrians’ situation was nothing more than a mere squabble between comrades. “I believe it is time I told you all what it truly means to be a Toa.”