Hoofed by Your Own Petard

by Tortfeasor

That Way Madness Lies

Disclaimer: Set course for maximum not owning. Engage.

Twilight Sparkle twitched and blinked on the cold stone floor. Her vision slowly cleared and she was gladder than she could say to find herself back in the Manehatten Library. But did she have to be lying on the floor? It wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of chairs and tables that had survived the fight earlier.

“Twilight!” The cry came from several throats and suddenly the pony in question found herself pressed into the hard floor by the weight of several ponies. As glad as she was to be back in the real world she did miss that soft bed. When this was all over she was buying a big soft bed just as soon as she could afford it.

“Thank goodness you’re all right!” Rarity fell back on her haunches, relief evident on her face. “I can’t believe Trixie would use such a vile spell! When I catch up to her…”

“Spell?” Twilight croaked. Logically she knew that Trixie had used some sort of magic but her brain hadn’t quite caught up with that yet.

“Yes,” Rarity visibly calmed down, “Trixie enchanted the window to keep any pegasi from doing exactly what we tried to do. She used a particularly invasive form of mind control to make you hallucinate. It was lucky that Celestia had shown the two of us how to counter the spell in case we ever ran up against it. Unfortunately the cure is very nearly as bad as the disease. I can’t even imagine what it was like to work your way out of that spell.”

“It was…” Twilight thought about the ponies who’d looked like her friends, the walls melting around her, and the constant nagging sense of wrongness she’d constantly felt. “You know what, let’s just add that to the list of things I really don’t want to think about any more. I mean I’m not going to have any side effects from being in there for, how long was I in there actually?”

“Just a few minutes,” Rarity helped her to her hooves. “The spell is designed to let you live out a whole horrible life in there while you die of thirst here in a few days. Fortunately we got you out of there right away so besides any bad memories you should make a full recovery.”

“That’s good to know,” Twilight smiled. “Speaking of catching up to Trixie did you tell them what we saw Rainbow Dash?”

“Ah, no,” Rainbow Dash said, “I got you back down here and then we were kind of busy with you being all cursed.”

“I guess that makes sense. Rarity, you aren’t going to have to wait to catch up to Trixie. She and Nightmare Moon want this book badly enough that Trixie is here personally leading the search.”

“And we’re not going to burst in there and reveal ourselves,” Applejack put a restraining hoof on both Rainbow Dash and Rarity’s shoulders. “We have that back door opened, we know roughly where the book is, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy can get in there silently now. Let’s let them go get the book and then we’ll try to slip out silently the way we came.”

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash flexed her wings, “we’ll start at ‘E.’ If it’s not there Fluttershy will work her way back towards the start of the alphabet and I’ll work my way towards the end. What do we do if it’s not there?”

“Search every other shelf you can,” Twilight shrugged. “Applejack said Manehatten’s libraries aren’t particularly well organized so you might have to look a bit farther than we were hoping. If we can’t find it here we’ll deal with that when you come back.”

“Right,” Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy looked at each other and took to the sky.

“Wait!” Pinkie Pie very nearly shouted. “Try starting under ‘R’ for reference guide!”

The others stared at Pinkie Pie before turning to Rarity to see if she knew what her long time friend was saying.

“It’s worth a try,” Rarity said at last. “Pinkie Pie does have a knack for making leaps of intuition like this. I mean if you don’t find it under ‘E’ you’re going to have to try it eventually and it does make some sense.”

“Well there are two of us,” Fluttershy’s response was normal for her at barely above a whisper. “There’s no reason one of us can’t look at each letter.”

Silent as shadows and just about as invisibly Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew up to the window Twilight had opened. After a look through Rainbow Dash sent back an affirmative hoof and the two slipped through.

“I hate this part,” Applejack grumbled as soon as the two pegasi were lost to view, “waiting without being able to do anything.”

Twilight had promised not to think about the spell Trixie had used to trap the window but she couldn’t help herself. Those images of her friends had been so different but at the same time so eerily similar. Could they, could she, ever serve Nightmare Moon? Finding the Elements of Harmony and hoping they could somehow use them was a very long shot. Twilight liked to think that if they found themselves in the same situation that she and her friends would tell Nightmare Moon to go jump in a lake. But she didn’t know that any of them, not even her, would do that.

And just what would she do if she ran into her brother while they were searching? So far as she knew nopony knew that Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor were related. And as long as that was the case neither Trixie nor Nightmare Moon had any reason to think that he was anything but a pony who’d finally made lieutenant in the guards barely a week before the sun disappeared.

She’d seen over and over that the guards weren’t themselves, and if he showed up it wouldn’t really be her brother. She knew that if he could talk her brother would shout at the top of his lungs for her to fight and run. But literally for the life of her she knew that she simply was not physically capable of bringing herself to hurt him. Her only consolation was that she hadn’t seen him yet. Twilight was fairly sure that if Trixie or Nightmare Moon knew she had a brother in the guard they would use that against her as soon as they could. Every day she didn’t see him was another day he was safe. Not for the first time Twilight swore she would find a way to bring the sun back before she had to face her brother.

Twilight looked around and saw that all her friends were equally pensive. Even the normally hyperactive Pinkie Pie was quietly looking at the window Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had gone through. Applejack was absentmindedly juggling a fragment of floor tile from hoof to hoof. Perhaps unsurprisingly Rarity was taking the lull to pick at dust and stray hairs only she could see with the aid of a mirror that had somehow come through the fight intact.

Twilight got back on all four hoofs and started shaking her legs. If they had to make a sudden escape she wanted to be loose, limber, and not lose any time getting up. A glance at a clock on the wall illuminated by moonlight showed that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had only been looking for a few minutes. It only felt like they’d been in there with all those guards and Nightmare Children and Trixie for a week or so.

All four ponies snapped to their hooves when the door to the wing Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had gone into began to bulge with an audible groan. Light began to spill between the crack opened up between the two huge oak doors and suddenly they blasted off their hinges and flew through the air to land behind the waiting ponies. Through the newly opened gap came two pegasi, one light blue the other yellow, with ponies chasing them and spells flying around them.

“Run!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she sped towards the main doors. Twilight noted with some relief as she started running that each pegasus appeared to be carrying a book.

Rainbow Dash burst through the main doors of the Manehatten library. In front of her was a courtyard for ponies to read, picnic, and play in under the sun. The courtyard was currently bathed in moonlight, and instead of being full of happy ponies frolicking it was full of angry and mind controlled ponies who wanted to kill her. Looking back just long enough to see the others run out of the door Rainbow Dash flew straight up to get a big picture view of the situation.

It didn’t look good to say the least. Her friends were running fast but they had a ways to go before they were even off the library grounds let alone out of the city of Manehatten. The guards and Nightmare Children were spread out over a lot of ground, but there were an awful lot of them and they were all heading towards the group of escaping ponies. At the doors to the library she saw a blue unicorn in rather silly armor stop in the doorway and shout at the ponies around her.

Rainbow Dash grasped The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide in her hoofs and dove towards the ground. She had something resembling a plan as she started picking up speed. At least she thought she had something resembling a plan. One of the numerous bad crowds she’d fallen in with had played a, in retrospect stupid, game of diving as close to the ground as you could before pulling up. Rainbow Dash was good at that game. Every time she’d played that game a nagging voice in the back of her head had reminded her of Fluttershy and that cloud. But then she supposed that was why it was called a bad crowd she had fallen in with.

This time though Fluttershy was off flying on her own and the only ponies besides her who could get hurt were not what one would call good ponies. Pumping her wings Rainbow Dash shot right past her terminal velocity and felt the air start fighting back against her. She’d heard that it was possible to go fast enough that you could outrun the shock wave, but even if she’d thought she was a good enough flier to try this was neither the time nor the place.

In fact it was just about the time and place to start pulling up if she didn’t want to become a rainbow colored splat on the ground. The trick to her plan would be to level out just in front of her friends and use the shock and surprise of her dive to open up a corridor for them to run through. She really, really hoped that nopony thought to stick something up into her path.

Nopony did stick something up into her path, and her dive was so perfect she thought she felt the longest hairs on her tail brush Twilight’s horn. Nightmare Children dived out of her way and though it had made her worry it seemed like even under Nightmare Moon’s mind control the guards still retained enough of a survival instinct to get out of her way.

With plenty of speed to spare Rainbow Dash shoved open the gates to the library. Under normal circumstances they were completely for show, but when fleeing for their lives every second could count and now they didn’t have to stop to open the gates. Rainbow Dash did have to stop then to duck under the lightning bolt that Trixie shot at her. Apparently the unicorn was perhaps a little bit angry that they might be stealing her precious books out from right under her nose.

The gates took on a magenta glow as they ripped away from their rather shoddy hinges and flew at her friends. Just as it seemed like they were going to hit they leapt up and slammed into the ground just behind them. The guards and Nightmare Children closest to them had to stop as they ran into and around the gates and in the confusion Rainbow Dash’s friends had a clear run off the library grounds.

This was apparently some sort of signal to drop all pretenses of taking them alive. Rainbow Dash briefly wondered just how much the Shadowbolts had to do with that pretense. And then she briefly wondered where they were. Surely with all the commotion going on they would show up sooner or later. What she’d do if they did show up was something she resolutely didn’t think about.

Then she didn’t have any more time for deep philosophical questions. A fusillade of spells flew through the air and it was only through some rather impressive dodging that Rainbow Dash came through unharmed. She glanced behind her and saw the spells take a rather sizeable chunk out of an apartment building across the street from the library. It was the middle of what was supposed to be the day so there shouldn’t have been anypony in there but Rainbow Dash still worried.

Of course since it was the middle of the day that meant there would be lots of ponies out on the streets that were about to see a running battle. As she started flying down those streets Rainbow Dash hoped those ponies would get out of the way in time. Though if they kept being as loud and flashy as they were now she didn’t think anypony would have much trouble knowing what was coming their way.

Rainbow Dash kept herself at just above rooftop height of the narrow streets her friends were running through. They’d chosen narrow streets because the guards and Nightmare Children wouldn’t be able to use their full numbers, there would be fewer ponies on those streets, and she noted as Rarity pulled down several fire escapes, the narrow streets would be easier to block behind them. Though the blast which ripped apart Rarity’s improvised barricade testified that under Nightmare Moon’s control the guards didn’t particularly care that what they did might hurt other ponies.

She looked around and saw a large number of pegasi chasing after Fluttershy, but gripped by absolute terror the yellow pegasus was flying so fast they had no hope of catching her. Rainbow Dash wanted to go help her friend, but as she dodged a pegasus diving on her and let him impact a rooftop she reflected that she had problems of her own. And as she shouted for Twilight to blast a pony trying to climb up onto the rooftops to attack her friends from above Rainbow Dash reflected that she had to deal with her friend’s problems as well.

A downright evil smile crossed Rainbow Dash’s face as she kicked aside a Nightmare Child who had been getting ready to jump down on her friends. Picking up speed she went into a steep climb. Judging herself high enough she turned over and went into an angled dive. Water towers were designed to withstand rain, wind, the occasional pony doing something stupid on a rooftop; they were in no way designed to withstand a pegasus making a precision dive at high speed. The wooden supports snapped like twigs under her well timed kick and with a lurch the water tower started to fall.

Ever since her escape from the guards several days earlier Rainbow Dash had come to a realization. She was a good flier. Not just a good flier, a great flier. If she didn’t have to worry about hurting another pony and could simply let loose she was fast, agile, and powerful in the air. Ever since the accident with Fluttershy flying had been a guilty pleasure, but no longer.

As the heavy water tower fell it took large parts of the buildings it hit with it. The rocks that rained down on the street took on a rainbow of colors and began flying back and forth as Rarity and Twilight fought with the unicorns among the guards and Nightmare Children. Her friends were severely outnumbered but desperation combined with raw talent made them more than a match for the numbers their foes could cram into such a small area.

All good things had to end though. Apparently tired of failure and no longer caring about collateral damage the guards and Nightmare Children, with Trixie in the lead, started leveling whole buildings at a stretch in an effort to kill their prey or at least open up more room. Rainbow Dash bit down a grimace and forced herself to fly on. There was no way that there weren’t ponies caught up in all that destruction, but if they failed here than those ponies would die in vain.

The streets below quickly became filled with chaos. Rarity and Twilight alternated between throwing up shield spells and hurling the abundant debris back at their pursuers. Applejack and Pinkie Pie meanwhile quickly dispatched any guards or Nightmare Children who managed to get in front of them. There were still plenty of pegasi in the air but Rainbow Dash’s frantic maneuvering made sure that they never managed to attack her in overwhelming numbers. Fluttershy’s pursuers would have overwhelmed her if they’d caught her, but that if always stood between them and the yellow pegasus.

Countless windows exploded just behind Rainbow Dash as Trixie sought to bring her down while flying by a glass faced skyscraper. Even in the moonlight the rain of glass seemed to bring a thousand rainbows falling to the ground. A magenta field suddenly sprung up at an angle and brought all the falling glass shards onto the leading guards and Nightmare Children. Several of them suddenly stopped running as rather sharp glass sliced through their hoofs.

Taking a much more direct route the pursuing unicorns decided to simply focus as much force as they could on the shield Twilight Sparkle happened to be holding up at the moment. Rainbow Dash had to look away briefly as Twilight’s horn glowed with the effort to keep the shield up but it was a fight she could never hope to win. Rarity though was not using her magic for anything and as Applejack threw a luckless Nightmare Child through a storefront Rarity’s horn shone blue and the ground under Trixie and the unicorns with her began to shake.

Almost immediately the assault on Twilight’s shield stopped as for close to a hundred feet from where Rarity’s spell hit it was now impossible to stay upright. The lone exception was a narrow strip of pavement Rainbow Dash’s friends continued to dart down. Pavement started buckling behind the fleeing ponies and Rainbow Dash watched as more windows shattered and several buildings lurched ominously but somehow stayed upright. Even from high up Rainbow Dash could see the toll the spell had taken on Rarity. The white unicorn was panting heavily and the blue glow that had surrounded her horn almost since they’d fled the library was considerably dimmer.

Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, she saw them. The skill, the speed, the black and purple flight suits, all dead giveaways that the Shadowbolts hadn’t stayed away from the chaos and destruction unleashed on Manehatten. Her friends were going to have to deal with some more pegasi for awhile. Rainbow Dash could fight off the guard pegasi and the Nightmare Children pegasi or she could try to talk the Shadowbolts down. She couldn’t do both at once. And she refused to think about their lingering offer. It was so tempting, but it still felt too much like betraying her friends.

As soon as Rainbow Dash broke away from her friends she noticed the Shadowbolts changed their direction to keep pace with her. The pegasi behind her quickly proved unable to keep pace with her and soon she’d left the immediate area of destruction. The whole city of Manehatten seemed to be on edge though. Ponies were casting furtive glances towards the sky and every pony she saw moving was darting from place to place.

“Hello Rainbow Dash.” Before she knew it the Shadowbolts were flying alongside her. Unlike the other pegasi in the city they seemed to have no trouble keeping up with her.

“I don’t mean to sound rude or anything,” Rainbow Dash slowed until she was hovering in midair, “but I was kind of busy when you guys showed up.”

“And you were magnificent,” only one of the Shadowbolts ever seemed to speak. “Everything we’re looking for in a captain.”

“C-captain? You’re joking, right?”

“No Rainbow Dash, we want you, and we want you to be our captain.”

Her, captain of the Shadowbolts? Even if they did work for Nightmare Moon there was no doubting that they were an elite flying squad. Just joining an outfit like that would be fulfilling the dreams Rainbow Dash had when she was dreaming, but to be their leader. She had to shake her head a bit with a hoof to make sure this wasn’t all a very weird dream. No, she was awake, which meant she was getting the job offer of a lifetime and her friends were still in very real danger.

“And did I mention,” the Shadowbolt spoke into Rainbow Dash’s silence, “that as our captain you’d stand beside Trixie in rank. You could order your friends made safe and if anypony didn’t obey we would make sure they regretted it for the rest of their very short lives.”

“I… could?”

“Yes, and from the looks of things your friends need all the help they can get.”

Rainbow Dash looked back the way she came and saw a huge dust cloud rise from some sort of explosion. Given how tired Rarity had looked and that Twilight must be busy with a shield spell there was really only one possible source for a spell of that magnitude.

“Just say the word,” the Shadowbolt had once again gotten behind Rainbow Dash without her ever seeing, “and we’ll save them. We’ll pluck them right out from under Trixie’s hoofs if that’s what you want. And then you can convince them that you’re right. You can convince them to serve Nightmare Moon and you’ll live like royalty. Even if they say no Nightmare Moon has promised that she’ll merely banish them to a country estate and keep them from leaving. A cage yes, but a very comfortable cage don’t you think? Much more comfortable than the fate that awaits them if Trixie crushes their skulls with a building or captures them and gives them to the Nightmare Children.”

Rainbow Dash looked at the cloud of dust slowly rising into the sky. Would it really be betraying her friends? They all knew how long of a shot this adventure was and what stakes they were playing for. But now that she was watching them face down imminent death could she stand by and idly watch? Was it more loyal to her friends to let them stand by their choice or to save their lives?

Rainbow Dash didn’t know the answer, or if there was an answer for that matter. If she saved them they might hate her for awhile but she’d have a lifetime to change their minds, and if she let them die, and she lived, then she had a lifetime of regret ahead of her.

“Save…” Rainbow Dash never finished that fateful sentence. Magenta light shone as bright as the sun and even so far away Rainbow Dash could feel the short hairs of her mane stand on end from the magical power in the air. A brief second later a dull thud passed through Rainbow Dash.

She didn’t know what Twilight Sparkle had done but it was clearly one of those things that made Rarity think Twilight was more powerful than any unicorn save Celestia or Nightmare Moon. Her friends were ready to fight Nightmare Moon to their last breaths. Maybe at that last breath she could pull them out of the fire but not until then. Doing anything else would be breaking her promise with Twilight to get their cutie marks fighting Nightmare Moon.

“Sorry,” she turned briefly back to the Shadowbolts, “but we don’t need your help yet.”

She didn’t fail to notice the scowls on their faces as she flew back to her friends as fast as she could push herself, but she’d live, and if she had anything to say about it so would her friends.

“That was amazing Twilight!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed yet again as they rested in the forests outside Manehatten.

“It really wasn’t that impressive,” Twilight waved off the praise. “Just hope they don’t find us because I don’t think Rarity and I could light a candle between the two of us. I don’t think I’ve ever used my magic so hard for so long.”

“I agree with that,” Rarity groaned, “but don’t sell yourself short darling. You were using magic over and over again that would have exhausted me after one use. I can’t even imagine how skilled and powerful you’d be if you’d gotten into Celestia’s Academy and been properly taught.”

Twilight started to object but was cut off by Applejack. “I’m sure you two can argue for hours about this but can we please read these books so we can get some sleep? If we don’t start now I might fall asleep before we finish.”

Everypony nodded agreement at that.

After cutting a swathe of devastation through Manehatten in their attempt to escape they had somehow finally eluded Trixie’s pursuit and had run as far as their tired legs and wings would take them. Finally they had all collapsed in a small forest on the verge of falling asleep on their hoofs. They had though made it out of Manehatten with two books: The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide, and Predictions and Prophecies. Twilight knew the first book would be invaluable but the second might yield a few clues to how Trixie had known Nightmare Moon was coming back.

First she cracked open Prediction and Prophecies. “Mare in the Moon, I guess that’s an old name for Nightmare Moon, a myth from olden pony times. A powerful pony who wanted to rule Equestria, she was defeated by the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon. Well that proves it. The Elements can beat Nightmare Moon if we can find them. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year the stars will aid in her escape and she will bring about nighttime eternal.”

“Anypony want to bet that this year was the thousandth year since Nightmare Moon was sealed in the moon?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Sorry darling,” Rarity said, “but I don’t think any of us are gullible enough to take up that bet.”

“Settle down girls,” Twilight reached over for the other book. “Let’s see what the Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide has to say so we can get some sleep.”

She opened the book and began to read. “There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: kindness, laughter, generosity, honesty, and loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery. It is said the last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. It is located in what is now the Everfree Forest.”

“The Everfree Forest?” Rainbow Dash groaned. “But that’s back past Ponyville. That’s going in a great big circle!”

“It’s not all bad,” Applejack smiled. “At least now we know where we’re going, and we’ll have a place to stay in Ponyville. My family lives there.”

“Well then,” Twilight said, “everypony get some sleep. Tomorrow we head back to Ponyville and the Everfree Forest.”

“E-excuse me Lady Trixie,” a pony in the black cloak of a Nightmare child walked up to her, “but would you like us to continue the pursuit of the fugitives? The wounded who are going to recover without lengthy treatment are back on their hooves.”

“No,” Trixie said, “it was a good thing they got that book. Now we know where they’re going and we can wait for them there. Send word that Trixie commands the army to move to the castle of the royal pony sisters in the Everfree Forest. And one other message, Trixie will have an old and dear friend of one of the traitors waiting for them there.”