What Comes Next

by Rocket Blaze

The Hardest Day, Part 2

"Blank Flank! Blank Flank! Blank Flank!" was all that Rainbow Dash could hear. As though to escape the inescapable, she found herself running faster and faster. Her damaged hooves were sending spikes of pain up through her spine, but she didn't care. In fact, she welcomed it. Anything to distract her from the incessent chanting.

At the edge of town, Rainbow Dash screeched to a halt and shouted into the afternoon air "I AM NOT A BLANK FLANK!" She knew it wasn't true. She had earned her mark and she had lost it. There was no point in rehashing that particular argument with herself, but her denial was strong. Unsatisfied with how she felt, she arched her back skywards and shouted again. "I STILL MATTER!" Deep down, she wasn't sure if she believed it, but it felt better to say, so she said it again. "I still matter!" She paused to breathe. "I still matter..." Next thing she knew, she was collapsed on the ground panting, and repeating to herself. "I still matter..."

Do you? she wondered. Yes, I do! she answered. What use is a pegasus who can't fly? she retorted. The only possible response she could think of was to reflect. The things she had prized were gone: Speed, agility, awesomeness... But she did have her loyalty. Or so she thought. Was it loyalty that made her yell at Diamond Tiara? Or was it something else?

"Pinkie was a monster and nopony knew it... Am I one as well?" she had to ask.

As the sun beat down on her sore back, she felt tired. The dirt filled her nostrils and clung to her coat as she rolled over onto her back to stare at the sky. What would she do if she had her wings? Aerobatics? Clear the sky in ten seconds flat? Try for another sonic rainboom? Go home?

"Home..." she muttered. That was it. Maybe if she saw her home again she'd feel better at last. Dash had never been one to surround herself with familiarity - always chasing something new and exciting - but at this point perhaps a little familiarity was what she needed. But her home was in the clouds. How would she get there without wings?

"Twilight..." Yes, Twilight would know how to get her home! Rainbow Dash fondly remembered when she gave Rarity wings for three days (although Rarity's reckless behaviour caused her to lose them in less than one). She chuckled at the memory. "She could give me wings! At least for a little while." Then she could just fly up to Cloudsdale. Or they could take Twilight's balloon. Push to shove, she could always teleport them.

Renewed in her strength, Rainbow Dash lept into the air and cheered "Twilight's gonna take me home!" and quick as a blaze was on her way back into town.

***

Taptaptaptaptap. Taptaptaptaptap. "Twilight! Twilight!" Taptaptaptaptap. The door opened revealing a dishevelled unicorn whose highlighted hair was a tangled mess of mats and split ends.

"R-Rainbow Dash?" she asked weakly.

Dash stammered her reply "Yeah! It's me. Hi! Hey... Were you asleep?"

"No, no." she yawned. "Just... It's been a long night."

"Uh, Twilight?"

"Yes?"

"It's two in the afternoon."

Without another word, Twilight stepped away from the door to let Rainbow Dash pass. The floor was covered in open books stacked in various piles. Spike was working to put some of them away in as inefficiently a way as possible. "Have you slept at all, Twi?"

"Oh! No. Of course not."

Balloon it is then. Rainbow Dash didn't trust Twilight casting magic spells when she was tired. "Hey, can I ask you a favor?"

Another yawn. "Certainly!"

"Like... Can we take your balloon to Cloudsdale? I think I need to get home for a while. And Tank is probably missing me! I don't even know if he's been taken care of while I've been... Uh, away."

"Oh. Fluttershy is taking care of him." That was good news! Rainbow Dash had enough on her conscience without having a neglected tortoise in the clouds die on her.

"So, uh..." she watched Twilight fall asleep where she stood. "I think I'll just borrow your balloon for an hour or two..." She put an foreleg over Twilight's shoulders and helped her navigate the labyrinth of books heading towards the couch. "Get some rest, Twi. And thanks for all the help." Dash layed her down for some decent rest before setting a nearby blanket over her, and left to get Spike to show her how to use the balloon.

***

"Wooow!" Until now, Rainbow Dash had not realized how much she appreciated the view from this high in the air. When she had her wings, it was just so normal for everywhere else to be so small and distant. Poor Spike had wanted to come to see it, but Rainbow Dash insisted that he stay home to look after Twilight. "What a true friend," she muttered to herself. Twilight didn't have to stay up all night just for her. What if Twilight finds a way to bring my wings back!? That would be so cool!

Cloudsdale loomed above, its weather factory spitting out more wind than it was a week ago. "Gotta get ready for Fall, guys." Maybe Dash would stop by the factory and see all of her favorite pegasi. Even those two who always called her "Rainbow Crash" would be a sight for sore eyes.

But first things first. She guided the balloon home, rising up and up into stratosphere before touching down gently on the platform outside her house. On her door was a note: "Rainbow Dash. I have gone to get your tortoise some lettuce and strawberries from my garden. I don't know if you will be coming home today, but if you are I will be back this evening." signed by Fluttershy.

Taking the note down with her teeth, Rainbow Dash headed inside where a wall of Wonderbolts memorabilia and reminders of her life before Pinkie awaited. It was almost like none of it had happened. She stood in the doorway staring at the walls, not daring to take a single step until she felt a light bump against her foreleg. "Hey Tank." The tortoise looked up with a smile, which Rainbow Dash weakly returned.

The wind through the door chilled her to her bones, so she closed the door and wandered to the bedroom, where a grand view of Cloudsdale awaited her just outside of her window. Sitting on the bed, she stared for a good while, doing naught but taking in the view. "Just like I never left." She turned to Tank when her stomach rumbled. "I guess I'd better go get something to eat, huh? I don't remember when the last time I ate was." Tank nodded back.

Clopping down to the kitchen, she decided on a hay sandwich with pickles and tomato. Just the thing to hit the spot. Setting all of the main ingredients along the table, she reached for a knife to cut the hay. As she pulled it from its block, the blade scraped against the metal guard. The noise it made echoed throughout the house, and before it could dissipate Rainbow Dash was on the floor clutching her forelegs in fear.

PLEASE STOP! PLEASE, PLEASE STOP! she remembered screaming, as Pinkie laughed and laughed. "The laughing! Make it stop! Please!" She covered her ears but it didn't go away. Tank nudged her, but she didn't move. Rainbow Dash was back in the cellar with her tormentor.

"Say, Dash, why do they call it a hacksaw? It doesn't hack. Hacking is what I was doing with the knife! This is a saw... I don't get it." She felt the pain as vividly as the day it happened; the bite of the sharp teeth splitting her wings from the body they rightfully belonged to. She recalled the acidic taste of her gorge rising as they were ripped away, taking mane and coat with it. As vividly as the day...

She vomited on the kitchen floor while Tank tried to comfort her.

"This..." she realized. "None of this is real! This can't be... It isn't!" She reached for the counter to stand up but only managed to scatter the food she'd laid out. A second attempt proved more fruitful, and she'd managed to regain her footing, but the walls were already closing in, covered in pony hide and bearing those words that Rainbow Dash would never be able to burn from her memory "LIFE IS A PARTY."

Quickly, she stormed out of the kitchen and back into her bedroom, slamming the door and pushing the bed against it to protect herself from the monster who was sure to come knocking. Her eyes darted along the walls. The Wonderbolts stared back at her out of a dozen frames. Her panic seized her - She would never be a Wonderbolt. She would never fly. She would never be the same!

She did not know how long she spent purging her room of every last vestige of memory. She tore the pictures off the walls. Some shattered; the glass ripping at her hooves as she paced. The books she had collected since her last stay in the hospital were torn to shreds and thrown into the air. If she could, she would have bucked out the columns that kept her room from collapsing and let it all fall to the ground miles below. Burn it all! she thought. Destroy it!

Powered by an unappeasable rage she bucked the bed away from the door and ripped it off its hinges. She stormed down the stairs ripping down posters and photos and pennants and streamers - anything that reminded her of the life she once had. Then she saw Tank cowering beneath her, and Rainbow Dash paused.

She remembered the competition at Ghastly Gorge. Carefully selecting her pet candidate based on the traditional pegasus virtues. None of which Tank ever had, but he never gave up. He never stopped wanting to be hers. Tank was loyal... And not just to Rainbow Dash. He was loyal to himself.

"What am I doing?" she asked herself. If a humble tortoise could win Rainbow Dash's devotion and care against the creatures that she herself had deemed superior then why couldn't Dash win her own devotion and care?

But you'll never fly again... she told herself. Enough of that! You can still be awesome, even without your wings! she retorted. Yes... But do you really believe that? Time stood still as she contemplated this. "I need to get out of here." she said.

Calmly, she trotted out the front door and into the fresh air. The wind beat her rainbow mane about, and it felt nice. This was the freedom she had missed so dearly. The freedom of altitude. She set her hooves down onto the clouds that surrounded her home, feeling their pillowy soft touch cushion her every step. Entranced by the breeze she moved ever and ever farther away from her house, and ever and ever closer to their edge.

"I could fly if I wanted to..." she said to nopony "...Just one more time." She peered at the ground below. The fall wouldn't be scary - It was nothing she hadn't done before. She wouldn't have her wings to slow her down. It might just be the freest she'd ever be.

Shaking her head, she realized that she just couldn't do it. There was no way she could abandon her friends like that. She braced to take a step back from the ledge.

"RAINBOW DASH! NO!" shouted somepony from behind her.

"Fluttersh-sh-SHAAAH!" in her surprise Rainbow Dash lost her footing and fell.

Comments

[The Cynical Brony]

*shakes head* Dash, getting rid of your life from before is not the way to get over this.

[The Cynical Brony]

Great chapter! Fluttershy, you just came closer to killing Dash than Pinkie did in SCC.

[Rocket Blaze]

*Scootaloo.

Blatant typo. There, I fixed it!

Hell if I know, you're the writer!

Lol, true. But you know the writer isn't always in control of their characters. Sometimes it feels like I'm discovering the words for the first time rather than creating them. That's why I love writing so much!