Rainbow Dash had been number two on Twilight Sparkle's wish-list. Number one had been Applejack. Twilight was convinced that Applejack's reliability, her rationality and her physical strength made her the perfect recruit and a vital addition to the team. It was only because Spike had insisted to get Rarity first that they had not talked to Applejack right away. This also meant that Rainbow Dash had been moved to place three.
Later, Twilight Sparkle would spend a lot of time thinking about this. She would ask herself countless times why she hadn't talked to Rainbow Dash first.
There are plans, and there is chaos.
Sometimes, you get the impression that the chaos is better organized.
-
Twilight sighted.
She and Spike were watching Rarity work. For the first time in days, the dressmaker-pony seemed to have reverted back to her former self. She almost looked cheerful, and after a while, she even started humming an all too familiar song.
"I'm still not happy with this, Spike. What happened the other day was just..."
"Why, exactly. Her magic is not the same as yours, but it's powerful alright. I've never heard of a unicorn creating things like these..."
"Excuse me? 'Things like these' ? Spike, it was pandemonium!"
"Pandawhut?"
"She brought her very nightmares to life! She created an entire world filled with monsters! Her existential horror came pouring right out of her head and was trying to kill us! Her potential is truly amazing, but, you know... horror ?"
"Relax, Twilight. Rarity will be fine. She just needs something to focus on. This will keep her from thinking about... whatever made her go all pyramid pony in the first place."
A sudden buzzing sound from Rarity's workbench made them both jump. She was currently working on something that looked like a chainsaw.
"You mean we are channeling her rage into a direction that's useful to us. I don't know, Spike. She might be better of with kindness- and therapy."
"Rarity won't be happy without her work. Trust me, now that she's back on track, she won't derail again that easily."
"But when she finally does, we'll all be DEAD."
"You're like a constant downer, eh?"
"Charlie the Unicorn reference? CLASSIC!"
Pinkie Pie had been sneaking in on them, finding just the right moment to test their vulnerability to heart attacks. Yet again.
-
Rainbow Dash was restless.
Ponies who didn't know her well enough would have thought that these erratic flying maneuvers were part of her usual routine. They were not.
She watched the town and the surrounding landscape from every possible angle. She was starting to notice certain patterns. And though she wasn't quite sure what she was seeing, she knew she didn't like it.
Not that long ago, she had thought that the sky was without boundaries, that she enjoyed absolute freedom of movement.
She didn't.
The sky was full of invisible barriers, no-fly zones. All this time, she had been flying on a handful of pre-established routes. Now that her former innocence had been spoiled, she had lost the inner compass which had helped her navigate through the iron skies the way she was supposed to.
Rainbow Dash was like a fly trapped in a glass bottle.
Many ponies would have said that Rainbow Dash was exaggerating her own exploits and telling tall tales until she started to believe in them herself. And as athletic and talented as Rainbow Dash was, she also liked to cheat. A lot. She was a cheating cheetah. Her love-hate relationship with Applejack was partially due to the fact that the workhorse saw right through her.
But there was a part of Rainbow Dash that knew all too well what was real and what was not. This part of her accepted nothing but the bare facts, and it was never satisfied with embellishments and half-truths.
It was this part of her which told her that this place was all about embellishments and half-truths.
And there was another thing. She hadn't met with her friends for quite a while, but lately she had been following Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Twilight and Spike around secretly. They were meeting at different places, sometimes vanishing for hours.
They knew something they didn't tell her.
Well, screw them.
-
It was rather ironic that it all started with a cupcake.
Rainbow Dash didn't like cupcakes, not since that horrible nightmare.
Yet Pinkie Pie insisted on bringing over a basket full of baked goods from time to time, since she believed Rainbow Dash wasn't eating enough.
This time, when Pinkie Pie approached Rainbow's cloud mansion in her balloon, the pegasus debated whether she should pretend she wasn't home. She opted against it. No matter how much the thought of Pinkie's cupcakes made her shiver, the idea that her earth pony friend had come flying all the way to her doorstep in vain was simply too heartbreaking.
And even this could have been without consequences, if only Rainbow Dash hadn't decided this very day to break with her habit and actually try one of the cupcakes. Normally, she would have checked the entire basket and thrown away anything that reminded her too much of the nightmare. Yet this time, she decided to retain the last cupcake, and to give it a try. She had no idea why she did that.
And thus she found the message.
-
Hidden within the cupcake, there was a piece of parchment. It turned out to be a map.
Pinkie Pie would later assure that this had been an accident, that one of the cupcakes she had prepared for one of the Resistance-meetings had found its way into Rainbow's basket. But of course with Pinkemina Diana Pie, nothing is certain.
-
Rainbow Dash had no idea what this map represented, and yet it seemed awfully familiar.
The iron sky. The pieces started to fall into place, one after the other.
She was trembling, sweating. Suddenly, her mouth was full of crayons, and she started drawing all over the map. Here... and there...
RIGHT THERE.
She looked at her work. She had pushed her crayons so hard that several of them were broken.
She spat them out.
She had drawn a rainbow, shaped like an arrow. The structure at the tip of the arrow was now colored in red.
Rainbow Dash was crying and laughing.
Laughing and crying.
Then she devoured the remaining contents of Pinkie Pie's basket, the flavour of the crayons still on her tongue.
-
"Rainbow Dash! It is SUCH a pleasure to see you!", Rarity exclaimed, "Please, do step inside!"
"Hi, Rarity. Good to see you too..."
Rainbow didn't like Rarity's boutique that much. This world of fashion and finesse was the last place that would make someone like Rainbow Dash feel at home.
But there was no other way. She couldn't do this without Rarity.
"I'll be right back, dearest. I'll make us a cup of tea."
"Listen, Rarity... I have a rather odd request..."
Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped when she finally noticed how much the inside of the boutique had changed. Apparently she wasn't the only one with odd requests.
The pegasus pony didn't even have the vocabulary to describe half of the things she was seeing. There were still a few beautiful dresses, but now they looked awfully lost, like colorful butterflies in an armory.
There were also sketches and open books everywhere. Rainbow recognized a book on alchemy she had once seen in the hooves of Twilight Sparkle.
"My, what a mess! I'm terribly sorry, Rainbow, but I am working on so many things right now... "
Yeah, Rainbow Dash thought, I'd say at least forty at once. Does that sound like a good estimate, Rarity?
"Listen, if you don't have the time to..."
"But OF COURSE I have time for you, Rainbow! There is no question about that. I'll do EVERYTHING you'll ask me for."
There was a sparkle in Rarity's eyes that the pegasus pony found rather intimidating. What had happened to her? Rarity had never been lazy, but this looked a lot like obsession.
Ah, well.
Rainbow started describing her request. Rarity was listening very carefully and taking notes. To her horror, Rainbow noticed that things all over the place had started moving on their own. Even as they were speaking, metal plates were fused together, materials melted and were shaped into new, exotic forms.
She is doing this, Rainbow Dash thought, She continues working on her other projects right now, while she is already working on mine. How is that even possible? Do I even want to know?
There was flesh, too. Rainbow was able to tune it out somewhat, but yes, there was living flesh, too.
-
"This sounds like a marvelous idea, Rainbow!"
"It does?"
"We're not going to waste any time. Please, hop onto this pedestal..."
"W-what exactly are you going to do?"
"Shhh. I'll need this to fit you perfectly. And I mean perfectly."
The blue pegasus observed with growing concern that a black liquid came floating into the room.
"I'm afraid this might take a few moments. I just realized that I still need to fix a few molecules... This is a new material I have developed earlier this afternoon, but I'm not quite satisfied with it... Yes, yes... Here we go..."
Dude... did she just say 'molecules'?
"There. This should do the trick. Now please hold still. You'll have to hold your breath for a few minutes... Oh, right, I guess you won't be able to do that. No worries. I'll just have to do it in seconds. No problem at all. Now hold your breath please... excellent."
Without further ado, the black liquid was covering her entire body.
It felt like an eternity when Rarity finally said:
"You can start breathing again, darling. I have created the openings for mouth and nostrils. Take a look into the mirror and tell me what you think. How does it look? How does it feel?"
"It's... it's like a second skin. This is incredible..."
"Oh no dear, don't move..."
Too late. Rainbow Dash had fallen off the pedestal and was now sliding over the floor.
"I'm afraid right now it won't allow you to walk. I really made it as smooth as possible..."
"This... this is amazing!"
Rainbow Dash was actually hovering slightly above the ground, because the suit was just so incredibly repellent.
"Yes, but I don't think it's very practical. I should probably give it another try..."
"No Rarity, this one is perfect. I won't need to walk in this anyway. This is for flying only."
Rainbow Dash was flying around in the boutique for a quick demonstration. Even though the suit was covering her wings, her flight was as steady as ever.
"Very well then. Please return to the pedestal, there is something else that needs to be done."
"Something else?"
"Trust me on this, dear."
Another bubble of liquid came flying through the air. Rainbow Dash gasped. It was boiling metal.
"Rarity..."
"It's okay, Rainbow Dash. The spell is shielding you from the heat. Though I'll have to ask you to hold your breath again..."
And then her head was wrapped in molten metal.
-
It were a helmet, and some sort of corset for her chest and her neck made of incredibly thin yet resilient metal rings. Rarity had also added a pair of goggles.
"I want you to wear these beneath the suit. They are based on the very structure of your bones, and will fortify your skeleton."
"It is ingenious... I wouldn't have thought of something like that."
"Of course not, dearest. This is what I'm there for."
"Rarity... I haven't even told you what I am planning to do..."
"And I don't need to know. My work here is done. Please take care, Rainbow Dash."
-
It was a beautiful summer evening. Clear skies, fresh air, even the wind was blowing in the right direction. Lies, but useful lies for a change.
Rainbow Dash was sitting on the roof of her mansion, wearing Rarity's suit.
From up here, she could gaze over all of Ponyville as well as the surrounding areas.
It was time.
Rainbow put on her new goggles.
With every flap of her wings, she was accelerating.
She knew that she wouldn't be able to fly in a straight line, but thanks to the map as well as the experiences she had gathered since the incident in the meadows, she was familiar with every route in the sky. Even though she didn't see the obstacles, she was able to navigate with ease, so that she could focus on gaining momentum.
And then she dashed right into the Forbidden Forest.
-
Even at this speed, her reflexes and her knowledge of the terrain allowed her to navigate around the trees.
The whole forest came to life. Branches turned into wicked claws, darts were flying through the air, poison gas was released into the atmosphere. Electric fences lit up like Christmas trees.
To no avail.
Rainbow Dash was busting through one security layer after the other. By now all hallucinations had worn off: She was seeing the forest for what it really was, a robotic inferno. And she was beating it.
Her target came in sight: One of the giant structures the ponies had come to refer to as "mountains", or more precisely, a small opening close to the top, secured by an electric field.
Without the suit, she would already have been fried hundreds of times, and without the helmet, she would have broken her neck.
Rainbow Dash had no idea whether she was going to survive the grand finale as well, and quite frankly, she didn't care.
The time has come to welcome spring, a pegasus' job begins, and clearing all the the gloomy skies... and let the sun shine in...
They didn't call her "Rainbow" and "Dash" for nothing.
-
She hit the target, though it wasn't exactly a sonic rainboom.
While opinions diverged on this as well as the following events, most ponies later agreed that this particular explosion deserved to be referred to as the "beginning of the end", as far as Ponyville was concerned.
-
Spectrum
by AcousticBrony
(as found on YouTube)