Chapter 6: Escalation
Rainbow lounged on her bed for most of the day, sleeping a few hours, lying awake a few more, and then repeating. The preceding night had been spent the same way, mostly. Her falling out with Spike last night had been bothering her, but not as much as her less-than-successful campaign to bring Mare Do Well out of hiding.
Why hadn't Mare Do Well come out to stop her yet? Was she not trying hard enough? Was she not villainous enough? Was she... a lame villain? The police hadn't had too much trouble keeping her down, after all.
Rainbow punched her purple pillow in frustration. She wasn't lame, she was just new to being this kind of awesome, that was all. Perhaps, though, she hadn't been trying quite hard enough. Perhaps it was time for something bigger.
But what?
She rolled over, analyzing her goals as a villain. She wanted the townsponies and Mare Do Well to be as miserable as they'd made her. She wanted to rain down misery on the whole town, and show them that nopony pushes Dark Spectrum around.
Or humiliates Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow sat up slowly, an idea forming in her mind. Perhaps rain was exactly what Ponyville needed. Yes, a nice shower. A nice big shower. A smile came to her slowly, and she flung the covers off. She had some evil planning to do.
* * * *
Rainbow held up the laminated piece of paper that served as her ID, and the guards didn't give her a second glance as she trotted past them. She'd worried at first that she would have to sneak into the building, like some sort of spy, but it hadn't been an issue. Apparently, Dark Spectrum hadn't become infamous enough to be known in Cloudsdale. Even after dark, the guards treated her like they always had. It was slightly disappointing, but not really a bad thing in this case.
She made her way through the weather factory casually, not wanting to raise suspicion. Friendly smiles and waves greeted her as she trotted down the halls and past the rooms where different types of weather were made. Rainbow didn't bother to return the gestures. Somehow, it didn't feel right to act friendly to anypony. She knew that these ponies hadn't been the ones to betray her, but she couldn't shake off the "I hate everypony" attitude.
She knew the way through the factory like she knew the back of her hoof, and it didn't take long for her to reach her destination. Purple vats spewed steam as pegasi poured in water and worked the bellows beneath. She'd made it to the cloud room without a problem, but what came next would be a little trickier.
"Ponyville needs a big thunderstorm? Well, alright then. I'll have the weather teams get right on it." At least, she thought it would be tricky. They didn't even ask for a note from the mayor, even though she'd forged one ahead of time. Apparently, she still had quite a bit of authority and respect in Cloudsdale. It was probably because she was so awesome.
Rainbow walked off with a smirk. Everything was going according to plan. Now all she had to do was wait until the storm was ready and then soak Ponyville.
Heh, bet Rarity's stupid mane will get totally soaked. And Applejack's stupid trees. And Fluttershy's stupid animals. And Pinkie's stupid parties. And Twilight's stupid books. Of course, Scootaloo will probably get soaked, too. She was an alright kid. Not too bright, and kinda clingy, but not bad. Rainbow shook her head, her smirk now absent. Collateral damage. It happens.
Rainbow stopped at the edge of one of the city's cloud streets, glancing back at the city that had been her hometown. For a moment, she considered just moving back into her old house and forgetting that Ponyville ever existed. Just go home to her parents, go back to making clouds, and make new friends who wouldn't stab her in the back.
She turned back around two heartbeats later, spread her wings, and headed back to Ponyville. She'd come a long way as a villain, but she wasn't done yet. Maybe once she'd had her revenge. Maybe once she felt like herself again, she could go back to a normal life in a different town.
If she ever could feel like herself again.
* * * *
"Has anypony seen Merry May?" Flitter asked, addressing the room full of pegasi. It was the second time in two days that the sour pegasus hadn't shown up for work, and Flitter was starting to get worried. Not worried about the weather so much as worried for Merry's health. Had something happened to her?
Merry hadn't been the only one, either. There were quite a few weather ponies that had been missing work lately. Most suspected Rainbow Dash had something to do with it, since she seemed to fancy herself as a villain in recent times. Even Cloudchaser, a punctual pony and Flitter's best friend, hadn't been seen in days.
Her attention was brought away from the rash of absences by the sight of something dark on the horizon that was rapidly growing larger. She plucked up the binoculars that were kept next to the window and brought them to her eyes. It certainly looked like a massive load of storm clouds coming their way, but a quick check of their equipment told her that the wind was blowing to the east, not to the south.
"Hey, are we scheduled for a big storm today?" Flitter asked, lowering the binoculars.
Blossomforth was the one to answer, "I don't think so."
"Are you sure? What about Appleloosa?"
Blossomforth took a moment to shuffle through some papers before shaking her head.
"Well, then, what the heck is one coming in for?" Nopony gave her a satisfactory answer. Flitter took another look at the cloud, confirming that there was indeed a team of pegasi moving it along. She headed for the door, intent on going out to ask the incoming weather team what was up, but the door burst open before she could reach it. Everypony gasped.
The villain that they had come to know as Dark Spectrum stood in the doorway, a toothy smile plastered on her face. Flitter opened her mouth to scream, but her world went black before she could get a word out as Spectrum shot forward and slammed into her.
* * * *
Rainbow turned away from the weather station's front doors and lifted off with a flap of her wings. It had taken her a little longer than expected to subdue the local weather team, and the storm was already blocking out the sky above Ponyville. The team from Cloudsdale would be expecting some sort of reception, and she wanted to be sure that she would be the one to greet them.
The weather team's leader was clearly marked by the vest he wore, and Rainbow flew quickly to him. "You're early," she said.
The stallion looked her over and smiled. "Hey, Rainbow. Here's your storm. This good here?"
"Yeah, that's good right there," Rainbow said, pointing a hoof at the clouds below them. "Don't start it up yet, though. Like I said, you're a little early. The storm isn't supposed to be for another hour yet. I'm captain of the weather team here in Ponyville, so I'll handle it from here. See you guys later."
The team leader and the other out-of-towners gave her a friendly wave as they headed back for their home in the clouds. Rainbow waved back at them, unable to suppress the growing smile on her face.
Rainbow burrowed down into the cloud layer, sticking her head out through the underside so she could see the city. She turned her rose-colored eyes to the west, watching the big orange ball slowly slip further out of sight.
Everything was working. The Ponyville weather team had been locked up in their station, the storm was in place, and the sun had nearly set. It was almost time. She set off towards the weather station again to retrieve her suit.
An hour later, Dark Spectrum stood atop the town hall, looking out over the city. The sun was finally gone. Night was upon Ponyville. It was time.
She lifted off slowly, rising up until her mane almost touched the blanket of dark clouds that hovered above the city. She'd done a quick check of the cloud cover, and was satisfied at its cohesiveness. Everything was set. All she had to do was flip the switch.
She didn't even bother with a second thought, turning and slamming her back hooves into the clouds. Waves of lightning rippled out from the point of impact, spreading all over the city. Rain followed quickly behind it, and soon the whole town was being drenched. It was a storm big enough for two full cities, just like she'd ordered, and it was all coming down on the small town of Ponyville.
Spectrum dropped down onto the town hall and laughed from her perch. It was maniacal yet refined, the result of hours in front of a mirror practicing. It started slow, but soon grew in volume and speed until she was cackling like a madmare.
Her laugh died down after a little while as her eyes took in the fact that nopony was coming out to stop her. Nopony to the east, west, north, or to the south. "Aww, come on!" she whined, stomping a hoof down.
Then something moved near a building. Something pink. A toothy grin flashed across her face and fell just as fast. It wasn't Pinkie, it was that other pink Earth pony, Lily. Oh well, at least somepony had taken notice of her cool storm.
Spectrum cleared her throat. "Behold, peasant, the storm of the century! Don't like rain? Too bad, because this is my city now! Ponyville is my playground! What'cha gonna do about it, huh? Yeah, that's right, noth—"
A streak of blue zipped past her and a section of the town hall's roof exploded behind her. She had to turn her head to see the source. Stupid goggles— holy horse apples! She'd never seen so many cops in one place before. She didn't even know Ponyville had such a big police force. She didn't have time to count them, though, as the legion of unicorns launched a barrage of spells and the swarm of pegasi closed in.
Well, it was what she had wanted... sort of. If she could beat all these cops, that would show Mare Do Well that the city really did need her.
If.
Spectrum launched herself upward to meet the closest pegasus. The stallion's eyes went wide just before Spectrum kicked him aside and sent him to the ground. She cartwheeled sideways, grabbed another one, and hurled them down toward the unicorns. But it wasn't enough.
She shot through the air, kicking off various pegasi within the swarm and bouncing around like a pinball. Pegasi tumbled down from the sky left and right, some getting right back up and others not. But it wasn't enough.
Spectrum went into a dive, holding her forelegs out and sweeping the legs out from under the unicorns along her path. Their spells went wide, some hitting their fellow officers and leaving nasty burn wounds. But it still wasn't enough.
It was too much. Too many. Even with her awesome moves the swarm was too massive. Where did Ponyville even get so many cops? She had to have an edge. She had to find something to break them up. She banked hard, turning around a corner and heading for a lot of dirt not too far away, wind and rain pelting her body. Pretty soon, the construction site came into view.
Streaks of magic flew past her as she slalomed between the wooden beams holding the unfinished building together. She pulled up hard, flared her wings, peaked, and went right back down to fly through the building again.
Just as she had hoped, the pursuing pegasi didn't expect her to come right back at them. They didn't have time to get out of her way as she plowed through them like they were bowling pins, scattering them among the construction equipment littering the building's first floor.
A support beam burst apart next to her, knocking her off course and into another wooden beam. The building groaned in protest as she quickly righted herself. These unicorns weren't messing around anymore, that much was clear. She needed a break from their stupid spells.
Spectrum headed up to the upper levels, where she would only have to deal with pegasi until the flightless ponies could make it. To her pleasant surprise, she found that the stairs to the fifth floor weren't even finished. She could take her time with the others, but the police pegasi were already catching up.
She kicked out one of her cloud bottles, catching it on a hoof and then hurling it toward the center of the floor. She ducked to avoid a pegasus she didn't know as the fog burst out of the bottle and spread across the fifth floor. She dove into the cloud, landing softly and holding her wings up to avoid disturbing the fog too much. She couldn't see anything inside the fog, which meant nopony could see her inside the thin cloud of dark gray.
She crouched low, lurking within the fog with her wings spread and her ears alert, waiting. It didn't take long for the gentle sensation of wind to reach the feathers on her left wing, and she whipped around with her right-rear leg out. Her aim was true, and she struck the invading pegasus right in the neck, knocking him back out of her cloud. She fell back into her crouch, waiting, listening, and feeling for anypony else that disturbed the cloudy mass.
A light breeze against her tail sent her hopping back a step and then kicking out with both back legs. She felt something soft, heard a groan and a thump, and was satisfied. It was actually kinda fun.
She heard the fluttering of wings, and a felt significant gust from her right side. She jumped up to deliver a flying kick, and saw what her target was a moment too late. Her hoof slammed into the steel drum of a miniature concrete mixer. She cried out in pain as the hardened construction equipment didn't give in to her assault, and hovered back, clutching her aching leg. Why was a concrete mixer even up there?
Something heavy hit the floor, and two pegasi launched into the cloud and latched onto Spectrum. They swung her up and around, throwing her back-first into a wooden beam. It broke in two against her, and she skidded across the wooden floor. The building moaned a little more.
That had hurt, but she'd taken worse. She got up quickly, shaking off the pain in her back, and picked up one of the broken chunks of wood. She flung it at the pegasi, followed by her own body. They avoided the piece of wood, but not Spectrum's hooves as she clotheslined both of them straight through the cloud. She stopped hard, sending both of them rolling down the unfinished staircase.
She turned, narrowly avoiding a spell she hadn't seen coming. There were police unicorns firing at her from the level above her. How did they get up there? No time to figure it out, though. Spectrum shot forward, stopped short, and flew straight up, uppercutting one of the unicorns clean off his white hooves. With a bounce off the ceiling, she tackled the other unicorn, rolling a short distance, and then flung him into a pile of unused wooden beams.
A few minutes of awesomeness later, and the police presence in the unfinished building seemed to be dwindling. A trio of uniformed pegasi even flew away from her as she approached them. Were they giving up?
"Hah! Am I too awesome for you? That's what I thought! Yep, nopony can... stand... up to...." Something about the quiet at the construction site struck her as unsettling. They'd tried so hard before, so why would they just walk away like that?
Suddenly, Spectrum couldn't hear anything beyond the deafening roar of the concussive blasts that surrounded her. Splinters pelted her body as beams of magic assaulted the building, blasting holes in everything they hit. Rainbow had never cared that much about collateral damage, but she had assumed that the Ponyville Police Department would.
She flew past the exploding beams, trying to reach an open side of the building before the inevitable collapse came. A powerful blast rocked the unfinished structure from somewhere below, and Spectrum could see the floor beneath her wings start to give way. She dodged left, right, smashed straight through a collapsing floorboard, and blasted free of the building as it fell apart behind her.
She'd had enough. No more games. No more playing around. She streaked up through the sky, arcing gently, and sped back toward the ground. She twitched a little, moving her wing out of the way as a few spells shot past her. The police were all gathered together for their assault on the construction site. Perfect.
She pulled up hard, her vision going dim for a moment, and released the two remaining cloud bottles on her belt. The legion of police ponies were soon shrouded in fog and Spectrum turned back around to begin her assault.
Into the cloud, out of the cloud, circle around, repeat. Spectrum didn't always hit something when she went it, but when she did, she sent it flying. She pounded through the fog again and again, smirking at the confused shouts from the police ponies. The fog slowly dispersed as she cut through it over and over. The remaining unicorns took a few shots at her, but she was going too fast. She didn't stop tearing through the fog until nopony was left but her.
Spectrum slowed to a hover, checking around the lot to make sure there was nopony else in her way, but she was alone. Spectrum smiled, panting from the exertion and stress. She was completely soaked and her body was sore, but it didn't matter. She'd won. Ponyville was hers. Mare Do Well was the only pony who could stop her now. At least, that's what she wanted the townsponies to think. She knew in her own mind that not even the four masked mares and their seamstress could actually stop her.
Dark Spectrum landed on the town hall and turned to address the crowd that had gathered before the mayor, presumably to ask why there was a storm. Spectrum shouted down at the crowd, "Where's your hero now, Ponyville? Where's that coward Mare Do Well?"
She paused for dramatic effect, and then shouted, "She's at home, washing her tights!" Spectrum cackled as a bolt of lightning struck somewhere nearby with almost perfect timing. "So run! Run and hide, Ponyville, because nopony's gonna stop me!" She continued to laugh as the soaked townsponies ran back to their homes. Spectrum sat down to rest a little, and waited.
She waited five minutes.
She waited ten minutes.
She waited thirty minutes.
She waited two whole hours, but Mare Do Well wouldn't come out.
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Can't wait for the next chapter.
Pulling a Joker, huh Dashie?
3637198 Wait, are you following me? I have been seeing you around a lot lately, and I suddenyl have two comment replies in a row from you. One was on one of your stories, granted, but still. Maybe I am following you? Spooky.
Well, I guess you could say that the situation, *puts on shades* escalated.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!
MDW please come out. Dash is only going to progressively get worse. Not as a villain she rocks as a villain but her deeds could eventually get somepony killed!
dark chaos emerald:this is embarrassing MDW.where are you!
Rrrrrrrrr. Mare Do Well may not be the hero Ponyville deserves, but she's the hero Ponyville needs.
So awesome!
Rainbow is kind of just sad in this story... Mare-Do-Well better come out soon or she'll lose it completely.
3637630 here's hoping.
More please more.
Hmmm, Ponies going missing. The rest of the Mane 6 are doing some sort of secret project for Princess Celestia. Perhaps there is something bigger going on.
I never thought I'd say this, but flick the police.
3637504
Heh. I wondered if anyone would catch that.
3638253
Well said. And extra appropriate, since there are already several Batman references in the story.
3637549
Huh.... That's an odd little coincidence, eh?
3637461
3639784
When I thought of what word should go in that sentence, that word came to mind, but I didn't even know if it was a real word or something I made up because it sounded right. I just tossed that note in there so no one would be like, "Um, is that a word?"
Oh, and "conglobulated" is my new favorite word.
3639765
Perhaps.
God I've been waiting so long for a story where Dash becomes a supervillain after Mare-Do-Well. Well, I've been waiting for one that's actually worth reading, and this one sure as fuck is. Update soon!
I'm just waiting for Dash to accidently kill someone.
They best story in a long long time i wish i could give you 100 likes keep posting please!
I was waiting for it to start raining, then have Dash make her big hammy speech, then have a couple of ponies open their doors, see the rain, grab an umbrella and make their merry way outside like nothing's wrong.
I wanted to like this story, but the continued absence of Rainbow's friends, and the way it keeps waffling between serious and humorous... it's not that you can't do that, it's just the highs and lows are too extreme for this to work, imho. I guess this story just isn't my cup of tea, sorry.
3640033
I was hoping she did when she bucked Thunderlane into the ground(?). It would have been so fitting! It would further alienate her from Equestria, as Equestria would probably reject her outright. She would be forced to live in isolation and to struggle for her survival, eventually growing strong enough to get her unfulfilled revenge...
Hey, it could still happen.
Only on the Hub.
3640033
I'm waiting for her to deliberately kill someone. You wanna be a supervillain, Dash? You gotta be worse than a public nuisance. That's what separates the Jokers from the Calendar Mans.
Just waiting for this story to get much darker
you know... ponies dying... houses burning... Luna and Celestia called in to save the day... the main six getting murdered one by one... just the simple things. 
3641421
Well, to be fair to Calendar Man, while he was normally very calm and controllable, when a special event day rolled around, he got Joker levels of bad. For an April Fools prank, he killed his cheating girlfriend and her other boyfriend with an exploding car.
I think. Could have this wrong.
3642565
Arkhamverse Calendar Man is decent. I was thinking more of the Calendar Man from the comics.
3639999
3640455
Many thanks. And here's some more right now.
3640553
Heh, yeah. Had I gone the straight comedy route, probably would have gone with that.
3641361
3642271
It's coming, alright.
3640907
No need to apologize. The whole story is a bit odd, especially with the mood swinging so much, and it's certainly not everyone's style. Thanks for giving it a shot, anyway; that's really all I could ask for.
Joker wannabe?
Also, I like how no one seems to care about all those disappearing ponies. Seems that Dash's shenanigans are turn everypony's attention from it...
derpicdn.net/img/2014/9/24/728575/large.png
Perhaps rain was exactly was Ponyville needed
Rainbow has fallen far down to the Dark Side. She now sees hurting Scootaloo as collateral. Her plans need to get nastier. More evil.
I'm certain there's a connection between the missing ponies, the increased police, and the hidden project. In fact, without the connection the story really doesn't make sense at this point.