//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: The Demon Within 
// by DOOT_Slayer 
//------------------------------//

The night sky was beautiful, Rainbow Dash thought. She was mesmerised by the vast black sea populated by countless stars, slowly burning in the silence of space. The moon glowed greatly, and the atmosphere calmed her nerves. Rainbow Dash was leaning out of her window, restless and unable to sleep. She was pretty excited about the upcoming entrance exam for the Wonderbolts. She hadn't attended the last two, but she had watched; she wanted to be sure that she was truly ready before trying. The Sonic Rainboom was becoming less exerting each time she performed it, so she must have been getting faster.
As she admired the stars, she noticed one very bright one in particular and couldn't help but stare at it. 
"Wonder what’s up with that one..." Rainbow Dash pondered aloud. Its brightness steadily increased, until it was around three times its initial luminosity. Rainbow Dash had sort of zoned out a little bit, not really focusing on anything. That was, until the bright star began to - quite literally - fall out of the sky. She thought her senses were playing tricks on her, and chocked it down to fatigue. 
'Right, that just about does it. I think I’m done hallucinating for tonight.' Rainbow Dash told herself, rubbing her eyes. She kept watching the comet, and saw that its path was diverging slowly. She was back to being wide awake now, this new development had brought her back to being alert. After a few seconds she could see each individual path clearly, and counted seven. Rainbow Dash watched as the comets plummeted towards the ground, screeching as they fell. She saw them dip below the canopy of some forest, and heard them hit the ground a few seconds after, so they couldn’t have been far. There was a gap of roughly one second between the sight and the sound, so it was maybe a kilometre away. They appeared to have landed fairly close together, all things considered. Rainbow Dash stood up straight, almost frozen in place.
"Well that was... pretty cool actually," Rainbow Dash could see a dim orange glow coming from the forest, where the meteors had landed.
"I should probably go check if everything's alright over there... I might be the only pony who saw that." She quickly drank a decent amount of water to keep herself hydrated, and flew out toward what would be the impact site. She couldn't wait to see just what she would discover. This was just like a Daring Do adventure.


The smoke had barely began to clear when Rainbow Dash touched down. Her landing helped a bit, but visibility was still quite low. She racked her brain for a few seconds, then a solution came to her. She jumped into the air, spinning rapidly; her wings were held close to her torso, and when she spread them the dust in front of her cleared quickly. The smile on her face grew by the second, along with the anticipation building within her. She wondered if it was worth all the effort of flying out there, practically the middle of nowhere in some random forest. Everything seemed to be fine, nopony or animal was injured and thankfully nothing was on fire, which had been her greatest worry when she saw the glowing from her window. She took a deep, calming breath and looked up into the sky. There was a steady breeze moving the clouds above her, and blowing the rest of the dust away slowly. Something didn’t feel right about this place. Rainbow Dash tried to figure out what, but it evaded her ever so slightly. Until she looked up again. The clouds were moving... on there own.
'Wait,' Rainbow Dash thought to herself, as she realised where she was with a flinch.
"Oh. Oh, shit. This is the Everfree Forest!" Her excitement changed to urgency once she realised her surroundings. She looked around quickly for the meteors, then stumbled upon a collection of craters, each about three metres radius. Seven to be exact. Curiosity took the better of her, and she made her way over to them.
A now faint, orange glow originated from the bottom of each of the craters. She slowly walked toward the glow, constantly aware of her surroundings. Rainbow Dash thought her eyes were deceived when she finally saw what had made the craters. Lying inside each, was one spherical object, like an orb. They looked like orange crystal balls or something.
"Oh my... wow! This... this is amazing! Imagine how much these are worth! How much are they worth?!" Rainbow Dash was ecstatic; Twilight was probably gonna like her discovery too. She'd want to examine them, and find any hidden properties about them, Rarity would absolutely love what ever they are, and Spike... Spike would do anything to eat these. She stood in the middle of all the craters looking at the strange objects, and noticed they had a different number of red stars on them, spanning from one to seven. Out of impulsiveness, she decided to pick one of them up. The worse they could probably do was burn her hand a bit. She reached out hesitantly, and touched one. It was smooth, perfectly spherical, and cool, oddly enough. Rainbow Dash rested her hand on it for a few seconds, but then it glowed much brighter than it ever had before. There was a large, sudden pulse of energy, and Rainbow Dash was knocked back from the craters into a large tree. She fell unconscious from the impact, and her mind started flooding with new information. The last thing she saw was the strange orbs fly up into the sky, and scatter in different directions, spreading across Equis. She looked back in front of her, and thought she saw a shadowy figure of another pony. Her eyes became heavy, and she heard a mysterious voice before she passed out.
"I will be free... you will let me out!"





When Rainbow Dash finally came to, she was still resting below the tree. Either no one had found her, or anypony else was actively avoiding the impact site. The latter made a lot more sense to Rainbow Dash, she was in the Everfree Forest after all. She looked up and realised it was now daytime. She shook her head to wake herself some more, then got to her feet. Other than a mild, lingering pain where she hit the tree, she was fine. She spread her wings, and took off slowly. Well, she was aiming for slow at least. The sudden increase in her wing strength took her completely by surprise. She had barely tried, yet she was already above the tree line. She observed the sky more, and deduced that it was the middle of the day. Her wings flapped gently, keeping her almost still. The orange orbs had disappeared somehow.
"So I wasn’t imagining that, the dragon balls did disappear. Wait... how the hell do I know what to call them?!" The more questions she asked herself, the more confused she became. There was other stuff floating around in her mind that she had no knowledge of yesterday. She thought it best to ask Twilight about this, so she tried to fly upwards gently, but immediately shot through the air.
"Woah. What the hell?!" She was all the way in the clouds, and turned around quickly. She briefly saw the rainbow trail left behind  by her mane and tail. She had nearly gone super sonic just from that. She decided not to fly to Twilight's, as landing would probably do more harm than good. She let herself fall towards the ground, using her wings to glide so she landed outside of the Everfree Forest.
'I'd rather not walk through there today.' She stopped her descent at the last second, and got her bearings. Once she knew the correct direction, she began walking to the Castle of Friendship. There were many thought processes going on in Rainbow Dash's mind, some good, others not so much. She pushed all those thoughts to the back of her mind, she could worry about them later.
"Well, I guess things can only get more interesting from here."