What Comes Next

by Rocket Blaze

Rainbow Rising, Part 2

Somehow Rainbow Dash and Applejack found the stamina to escape the forest, but they were not too far ahead of the beast that followed them, destroying the forest as it went. Another roar thundered across the orchard, now stripped of leaves by the runners having stampeded through. "We have to warn Ponyville what's coming!" Rainbow Dash cried.

"I think they know!" Applejack replied, checking over her shoulder. The Ursa Major easily cleared the tree line at the edge of the forest where the trees were the smallest. Even at a respectable distance, it towered over everything in sight.

In its blind rage, it ripped trees up from the ground and tossed them at the horizon. One landed nearby as the pair darted back and forth through trees and around obstacles, trying to get back to the main path of the run. Another one crashed ahead of them, embedding itself in the soft soil as effortlessly as a falling arrow. They split to avoid it, but branches reached out and scratched at their coats as they passed.

"I don't think it cares about us any more!" Rainbow Dash noted.

"I don't care! I ain't slowin' down and I ain't gonna let ya!"

It didn't take long for the Ursa to overtake them. Rainbow Dash could take a hundred strides and still not cover the distance of the great beast's one. Avoiding the cataclysmic footfalls that pulverised the orchard trees nearby, Rainbow Dash and Applejack soon found themselves watching the Ursa fade into the distance. Finally, they allowed themselves to stop.

"Applejack, Ponyville is that way! We have to find a way to get there faster!"

"Where's that blasted balloon when ya need it?" Applejack stomped her hooves into the dirt as Rainbow Dash pushed past her. "Wait, Rainbow Dash, where ya goin!?"

Dash called over her shoulder "I can't sit around here while our home gets crushed by an oversized teddy bear!"

Applejack took off after her. "I agree, but Rainbow... That ain't no teddy'n we ain't got no plan!"

"My plan? My plan is to get as many ponies out of there as possible! We can't fight that thing. We threw everything we had at a Minor and it still couldn't be stopped."

"Well I agree with ya, it beats sittin' around waitin' for a miracle. But we gotta be smart, Rainbow."

The Ursa Major had disappeared over the horizon, but its glow could still be seen well over a mile away. Rainbow Dash desperately wished for her wings, but it was no longer for her own benefit. She knew that without them, she would be helpless against the beast that was surely terrorizing the town.

"Smart?" She implored. "Smarts aren't gonna help get everypony out of there. We need to act, now!"

***

By the time Ponyville rose into view, it was a smouldering heap of broken buildings and roaring flames. The Ursa Major was curled around the town hall, a mere half of its own height. Cantering past the city limits, Rainbow Dash could see the distant flashes of unicorn magic, hammering the creature with what could only have been containment spells.

Slowing down, Rainbow Dash noted "It must be the Canterlot guard. The Ursa Major must have brought them out here... But where are the others?"

"We gotta split up! Go find Twilight, I'll try to find Rarity." Applejack commanded.

"What about Fluttershy?"

"I sure as sugar hope she ain't around this war zone!"

Rainbow Dash pointed at the sky "...Or she might be trying to help." Applejack looked toward where she was pointing, and her eyes widened. A small winged figure in the distance flew over all of the chaos and hovered just above the Ursa's nose. Fluttershy always had a way with animals, but she doesn't know what she's getting into! Then again, neither did Rainbow Dash.

Frozen in place, the two ponies watched in horror as the beast lurched its massive head forward and knocked the pegasus away on a long curve over Ponyville. "FLUTTERSHY!" Dash screamed, jumping in the air as she tried to spread her wings to go to her rescue. As she crashed back down to Earth, she managed to quickly regain her hooving and canter off towards where Fluttershy had landed. "I'M COMING!"

Her hooves trampled the cracked roads and sidewalks as ponies stampeded the other way. Dodging, leaping, bounding, ducking, rolling, and sliding kept Rainbow Dash from getting swept away by the herd. If she's hurt, I'm going to-"RAINBOW DASH!" A voice cried out from across the road. It was Twilight. Her horn glowed a brilliant, warm pink as it cast a bubble shield around Spike, who sat astride her back.

Rainbow Dash saw that Twilight was okay, and called back to her over the din of refugees leaving the town. "There's too many ponies in the way! I can't get to you! We have to get to Fluttershy!"

Twilight nodded, and shouted back. "Celestia knows about this. She's sent her best spellcasters to try to counter it! Do you know where Applejack is!?"

"She's looking for Rarity! We split up to cover more ground! Try to find her! I'm going for Fluttershy!" Before Twilight could respond, Rainbow Dash was off again.

The crowd had cleared up by the time she'd reached the damaged square. Only the armor-clad guardsponies from Canterlot surrounded the town hall in a sparse ring, where each unicorn was giving its contribution to the ever strengthening wall surrounding the raging beast.

Inside, the Ursa Major bared its teeth and pounded against the shield wall with all of its strength. The din echoed across the city, and resonated deep within Rainbow's bones. She stopped to look, and at one point it seemed like the monster was staring directly at Rainbow Dash with those hateful, vacant eyes. Eyes that seemed to recognize her in particular. A chill traversed her spine and Dash remembered her mission.

The streets outside of the square were completely vacant, except for a small crowd of citizens who huddled around a fallen figure. It was Fluttershy laying at the bottom of a shallow crater. Motionless, but awake and breathing.

"Fluttershy!" Rainbow called. The ponies separated to let her in.

One of the ponies approached. "I'm the one that found her. She's hurt, but she's okay. I just hope that monster doesn't get loose again. I'm not sure we can move her."

Rainbow Dash glanced over the pony's shoudler into the pit beyond. Fluttershy met her eye with a smile, and gave the faintest of nods as though to give her permission to look after the rest of the town.

"Let me talk to her!" Rainbow Dash pushed her way past the pony and knelt next to Fluttershy. "Are you okay?"

Fluttershy's head sunk back down against the ground. "I've felt better, Dashie. I... Just wanted to help calm it down."

"Fluttershy there's something else going on, I-"

Fluttershy nodded. "-Go help, Rainbow Dash. I'll be fine. I believe in you. Remember to believe in yourself."

Rainbow Dash nodded, and gently tapped her muzzle against Fluttershy's forehead. Turning around, she saw the stallion who'd approached her. She smiled "Please make sure she gets help after this is all done!"

The stallion nodded.

Rainbow Dash pushed past, but before she ran off, she turned and said "Thanks, uh... What's your name?"

He shrugged. "I'm the Doctor."

"Oh, you're a doctor?" His mark was an hourglass. Not the typical mark of a medical practitioner, but at least Fluttershy was in caring hooves. "Okay, doc. I need to find my other friends. Take good care of her for me!"

Dash cantered back towards the square. Though she skirted its edge - passing through broken buildings and taking backroads - she could feel the Major's footfalls as they quaked through the ground. It hammered the shield wall, and loosed a tumultuous roar.

On the other side, Twilight's balloon floated into view from over the horizon. Inside it was Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack. Rainbow Dash called out, waving her forelegs to gain their attention. "HEEEY!"

Seeing her, Twilight directed the balloon to hover just above the line of shattered rooftops. "Rainbow Dash!" Twilight called "I need you to distract it so that I can cast this pacifying spell! It worked on the minor! They aren't so different, but it can't see me casting it or it will know it is being tricked and could try to resist it!"

Rainbow Dash called back. "It seems plenty distracted to me!"

The distant Twilight shook her head. "It's angry, and I don't know how long the Canterlot Guard can hold it! They're getting exhausted!"

Rainbow Dash tried to glimpse one of the guardsponies through the rubble. He was down on his forelegs, sweat brimming across his face, but he kept his horn up to hold the wall. "I'll do the best I can!"

The balloon took off, and Rainbow Dash turned to face the town square. "Okay, beastie... It. Is. On."

She dashed straight for the shield wall shouting "HEEEEEEEEY!" To her surprise, it stopped its rage against the shield wall and turned to face her. Its gigantic paws pounded the rubble of the town square into ever finer pieces, and it lowered itself as much as it could in the confines of its cell. "YEAH! YOU!" It blinked, and then snarled venemously.

Rainbow Dash was filled with fear, despite the shield wall separating them. She knew though that the Ursa Major was only acting out because it was scared, and confused. "I know what's happening! I know what's inside you!" she shouted.

Rainbow Dash reared up and placed her front hooves on the shield wall. It sent a warm tingle down her forelegs, but she could manage that. Staring straight up into the Major's eyes, she called out. "I was there! Not that long ago!"

It shook its head violently and kicked the shield wall, which pulsated and sent Rainbow Dash falling onto her back. Instead of getting up, she jabbed a hoof in the air and pointed it straight at the creature. "Think about it! You were in your cave! Something happened! Why are you acting this way? It's not you!"

There was a shred of recognition that peaked through the haziness in the Ursa Major's eyes before it threw its head back and roared at the sky, clutching its temples in what looked to be pure agony. "FIGHT IT, URSA! FIGHT IT!" Rainbow Dash urged. "YOU ARE NOT THIS MONSTER!"

The bear dropped its forelegs back to the ground and huffed. A visible cloud of vapor shot from its nostrils and momentarily fogged the shield wall. Then it roared again. Thrusting out its back legs, it wedged itself between the two sides of the shield wall and heaved as hard as it could. Its eyes once again blank. "NO, URSA! NO!"

"I... I can't hold it!" shouted one of the guardsponies from somewhere behind her. Hearing him collapse with a thud, the wall became a little less opaque just before it shattered into countless magic shards that disappeared as they floated through the air. The Ursa's massive paws crashed into the ground with a thud that launched Rainbow Dash several inches into the air. Staring down at the tiny figure beneath her, it looked as though the beast was going to kill her with a single bite.

Just then, a blast of purple cast a glowing halo around the Ursa's hulking form. Twilight launched her spell, but the Ursa was clearly too enraged to succumb to such a spell. Rearing up onto its hind legs, it towered so high into the sky that it seemed to stretch up to infinity.

Turning in place far more rapidly than anything its size should have been able to do reasonably, it swung its foreleg out and shredded her friends' balloon in mid-air. Rainbow Dash saw the basket fall to the ground, and immediately bounded between the Ursa's legs after it.

The basket had toppled onto its side, dumping her friends out along the pavement like so many dropped eggs. Spike was unconscious, and the ponies were too dazed to stand. Rainbow turned in time to see one house-sized paw lift high up into the air, and come crashing down straight over the top of them.

"NO!!!" Rainbow Dash screamed. In that moment, her voice was as loud as the Ursa's roar. Not my friends! she thought, desperately. "NOT MY FRIENDS!" she shouted, instinctively raising her forelegs to block it.

As the Ursa's crushing blow was dealt, Rainbow's hooves met it and, where she had expected to feel a brief moment of pain followed by nothing, a shock jolted down her entire body and pulsated outward into her skin, then back up into her hooves.

Her mane glowed brilliantly with the colors of the rainbow, that flowed out from the point where here hooves met the Ursa's paw. There, she felt the strange sensation she'd only experienced twice in her life.

A rainboom! she realized.

And with her hooves outstretched, she was but an immovable object met by an unstoppable force. As she stood there over her friends, she knew her outstretched hooves could have held the weight of a thousand Ursa Majors if it meant protecting them.

The shockwave that had formed at the ends of her hooves spread out as a band of multicolored light, spreading through the town square and washing over all the ponies where were simply watching in disbelief.

The boom was powerful enough to push back the heavy paw. Rainbow Dash sunk into the pavement, with loud cracks spreading out from where her hooves had met the ground, but the Ursa Major was thrown backwards. It fell slowly as the guardsponies fled from behind it, shortly before it landed with a cataclysmic CRASH.

Rainbow collapsed to the ground as well. Her forelegs were numb, but they still moved as she willed them to. Managing to stand weakly, she turned to see all of her friends staring back at her, their eyes wide with amazement.

The Ursa groaned, and attempted to stand on its own power. Managing to rise to its feet, it looked back over its shoulder at the ponies, and the damage it had caused. Its eyes were back to normal.

Hanging its head with what could only be sadness and shame, the Ursa Major started to slink away.

Rainbow Dash was glad to see it go, but something didn't feel right. "WAIT!" she called. The Ursa stopped and met her gaze. "This..." Rainbow gestured at the damage around her. "This wasn't your fault! Please. Please know that!" She managed an encouraging smile. The Ursa seemed to smile back, before turning its eyes forward and heading back towards the Everfree Forest.

***

She stood vigilant as the Ursa Major disappeared over the horizon. Only then did she allow herself a moment's reprieve, and a very hearty sigh. Before she knew what was going on, Rarity had jumped onto her as Twilight scrambled to her feet and approached, giving an approving nuzzle. Applejack stayed down, but smiled weakly up at Rainbow Dash.

"Rainbow Dash! That was amazing! Good show." Rarity cheered.

"Yeah!" Twilight agreed. "I... I had no idea you could do that."

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Yeah... Neither did I. It was like-Agh!" Her head was seized with a terrible pain, and her friends' words of encouragement were drowned out by a pounding in her ears, and a dark voice echoing deep within the recesses of her mind.

"This isn't over."

The moment passed as swiftly as it came. Rainbow wasn't sure it had happened at all. "Rainbow?" Applejack was asking. "Are y... Are you... Are..." she twitched briefly before she passed out, her head collapsing onto a pillow of soft rubble.

"Applejack?" Rainbow Dash prodded her with her hoof.

Twilight shrugged. "She's probably just overtaken with everything that happened. I'll get her back home where she can get some good rest." She was about to pick up Applejack with her magic when Rarity gasped.

"Rainbow Dash!" she said, breathlessly. "I... I think you should look at your flank!"

Looking back, Rainbow Dash started "Look at wha-" She caught a glimpse of color emblazoned onto her haunch. "-It's..." She couldn't breath. "I... Oh. My. Gosh." She stammered. "Oh my gosh! I..."

"Your cutie mark came back!" Twilight cheered.

"Well, not exactly..." Said Rainbow Dash, examining it closer. Where the cloud and lightning bolt she'd had for most of her life had been, there was now a simple three-pronged shield, striped with all of the colors of the rainbow.

"It's like a-" Rarity began.

"-Rainbow Shield?" finished Twilight.

Rainbow Dash let out a laugh. "Rainbow Shield! I like it but... Let's not call me that, okay? I may have a new cutie mark, but that doesn't mean I'm a different pony!"

"But you are, Rainbow Dash." said a voice from above.

"Who-" Rainbow Dash looked up. "Luna!?" She was echoed by her friends.

Princess Luna drifted down gracefully from the darkening sky above. "'Friendship will find a way, fair Rainbow Dash.' Do you remember when I said that?"

Rainbow Dash paused, thinking back on the month that had come before. "I do... It was like a dream. It was a dream... But, why are you here now?"

"Because I've been watching you every night as you slept, Rainbow Dash. I tried not to intervene when you dreamt ill, because you needed to discover that in order to be whole again you needed to let your friends help you through."

"And you did an amazing job, my little ponies." Princess Celestia touched down next to her sister, beaming. "Not just Rainbow Dash, but all of you who helped her. I watched during the day, as despite everything you became closer than ever before. Believe me when I say, you've earned that new cutie mark on your flank."

Luna continued. "So no, you are not the same as you were. You have learned so much that the old Rainbow Dash did not. "

"You have become stronger, more confident, and more loyal than before." Celestia finished. "Please note your trials well, for the pony you have become is the pony you were meant to be. Do not forget that."

Rainbow Dash was speechless. Twilight went to her side and nuzzled her lightly. "See Rainbow Dash? I knew you were going to be okay." Turning to her teacher, she continued "Princess! Thank you for coming."

"I wish I had come sooner. I'm afraid it wouldn't have done you much good. Not even my magic is enough to stop a fully grown Ursa Major." Celestia smiled at Rainbow Dash. "You have quite the unique talent there, young mare."

"But I never even knew I had this talent!" Dash stammered.

Celestia placed a hoof on Rainbow's mane. "Sometimes it takes the most difficult of challenges for us to discover who we really are." She lightly touched the scar tissue on Rainbow's back. "Especially when we think we've forgotten."

Rarity looked around, distressed. "I wish I could discover a talent for cleaning right about now." She turned to the princess. "Will Ponyville ever be the same?"

"All things heal with time, Rarity. But in this case, I shall help speed things along. When I return to Canterlot I shall dispatch our finest architects and engineers to rebuild Ponyville as it was. Brick for brick!"

"Thank you, Princess!" Rainbow Dash managed. "One more thing though... Fluttershy. Is she-"

"-I've already sent some of the guardsponies back to Canterlot with her. She'll be tended to well there."

Rainbow Dash smiled. As she stood there surrounded by her very best friends, she knew that her new start would also be the start of a new, magnificent journey. All of a sudden, even in the wake of everything that happened, nothing seemed so bad anymore.

Comments

[The Cynical Brony]

Okay, I'm sorry, but I laughed my a$$ off during this. It just seems like such an 80's B-movie cheesy ending!

[Papillon Rose]

I know some people didn't care for this, but I thought it was awesome. I prefer a Rainbow Dash who embodies loyalty so much that she performs a damn near miracle to save her friends despite having suffered so much.

But I also like the inference that one doesn't have to be defined by a single talent, and that you can rise again after falling so hard. So screw it - you've earned my respect and my fave for the interesting take on a Cupcakes spinoff/explanation. ::hug::