Chapter 7 - How Many Licks
CHAPTER 7
How Many Licks
It was impossible.
It was impossible to fly. It was impossible to fight. There was nothing just one pony could do against such an unstoppable force of nature.
Dash had no hope, but now maybe the others did, and that was—Perhaps not enough, she thought, but it was all she could give them when there were no other options left.
Flying out into the deadly storm was brave, at least. Wasn't it? She wasn't sure what bravery really was anymore.
What would the Wonderbolts do?
Not this, she decided. They would have stopped the train before it got to the bridge. They would have kept everypony out of danger from the start instead of throwing their own lives away in a meaningless attempt at the impossible.
No, not meaningless. I've made them a promise to try, and as thin as it is, that at least is something. Something important.
It was impossible to fly in the storm. This wasn't flight as she'd known it all her life. This was staying aloft, with great difficulty and pain. Her wing muscles, overworked and repeatedly strained to their breaking point, were a fire upon her back. Shooting stabs of pain lashed out from them to torture her exhausted body. The burn on her shoulder, the cuts on her face, the bruises, aches, and pains that riddled her body were as nothing compared to her wings.
Still Dash flew on, tacking like a sailboat against the cold, vicious wind, never flying straight into it. Instead she angled against the wall of air and water, gaining altitude and slipping further into the swirling heart of the storm.
She had decided that that was where she needed to be even before she had left the train, and now her situation made questioning that decision as impossible as everything else.
Dash no longer had energy to spare for thinking. Every ounce of her strength was spent on pure motion—repetitive, strenuous motion, with no ground visible to judge her progress. Rational thought was beyond her. She had only instinct to guide her now, and she slipped, without even knowing it, into a kind of trance.
Twist and pull in wings. Lift up. Extend and flatten. Thrust! Arch body to minimize pain, maximize leverage. Don't overextend—keep the muscles tight. Twist and pull in wings. Lift up. Extend and flatten. Thrust!
Time didn't exist to her anymore. Ground and rain and darkness were unimportant. It was just the wind, her wings, and flight. She had the perfect concentration of no thought at all, and with that came no worry, no fear. Even pain became a discrete thing, separate from her and therefore easier to ignore.
It was as if, in the belly of pain and fear, she had found a tiny, tenuous refuge. She needed only to keep flying, and all else could be ignored.
———
When a piece of airborne debris slammed into her left foreleg, it was the sound that broke into her awareness first. It brought her out of her timeless trance and reawakened her reason.
She thought about the force of the impact, the angle of her leg—the loud crack. She knew what was to come when her body and mind reintegrated, and the protection of her trance was fully lost.
Dash thought she was prepared for the pain, but it rushed at her with such suddenness, such ferocity, and it kept coming, and building, and growing. She cried out, her mouth filling instantly with water. Her eyes went wide behind her rain-streaked goggles.
Then her eyelids drooped, her eyes rolled up, and her wings folded.
Dash was a tiny waterlogged mote dropping through an endless expanse of storm. Her tangled mane drifted gently about her head like her own personal cloud. No rain beat against her, for she was falling with the drops. No wind shoved against her, for she moved along with it. She was a peaceful point of color lost in a bleak gray sky.
Alone and unseen, Dash fell.
———
There was light from above, directionless and gentle. There was also a faint susurration of sound, at the edge of imagination, with no roaring wind assaulting her ears.
Instead of a body she was a bundle of jangling nerves, sizzling and popping, as if every part of her was asleep and just waking up—a haystack's worth of pins and needles.
Compared to before, it was utter delight.
Those few senses were enough for now, Dash felt. That was almost too much to take in at the moment. However, her body refused to obey her wishes, forcing her to smell the pungent sea and taste the tang of salt.
She tried to curl herself up, to hide away from the world that wanted her back. Please, she thought, but she didn't know exactly what she was silently pleading for. She only knew that this—that all of this—had been too much. It was more than she could bear. If the end had come, she would welcome it, because she could progress no further.
She withdrew.
For a time, Dash thought no thoughts. She felt nothing and did nothing, and it was a relief beyond measure. This peace, such as it was, wasn't suddenly taken away from her either, as she feared it would be. No new hardship was thrust upon her. Additional disasters failed to make themselves known. She was left alone by the world, and so she remained still with her eyes clenched shut.
It was a kind of rest.
How long Dash lay there, she had no idea, but at some point in her respite, old worries and memories became aroused from long slumber and began to wander unrestricted around her blank and defenseless mind.
Feelings of inadequacy, memories of past blunders, and self-recriminations hounded her. They formed a gibbering hoard of vileness that crept and slunk ever closer, forcing her back into the corners of her own head. Their thick, clinging tendrils of malevolent condemnation suffocated Dash with her own doubts and fears.
Her mind flailed wildly in a desperate attempt to escape the crushing depression that threatened to smother her in darkness.
With the silence of thought, she screamed—a raw burst of rage and fear that came from everywhere and nowhere.
As her head rang with the echoes of her anger, she stared into the darkness with a sudden and powerful defiance—and the dark forms retreated. Scratching and scraping at the walls of her mind, they left behind their foul stench as they slunk back into the recesses of her memories.
Trembling in the silence, she felt compelled to reach out for a good memory, any memory that could bring her comfort—a lifeline that could remind her who she was.
She found one.
Some time ago, an unsuspecting Rainbow Dash had been granted a title—while battling the Mare in the Moon, of all things. It was a huge honor. It had made her proud, but it had not changed who she was. She had come first—the title had come later. She chose to put others before herself not because of some dusty jewelry or ancient magic, but because that was an inseparable part of her. She couldn't be Rainbow Dash without her loyalty.
She couldn't remember any one event that had put that powerful drive within her. There might not have been a beginning to it at all. It was just something that had, as far as she was concerned, always been a part of her. Being called the Element of Loyalty didn't make her any more or less loyal to her friends, loved ones, and fellow ponies than she had been before she started saving Equestria on a semi-regular basis.
As important as being one of the Elements was, it was all rather—She stopped to remember a word she had read in a book. She had needed to look it up.
Superfluous.
She didn't need a mystical jewel to tell her not to give up on her friends or her responsibilities. She wouldn't anyhow.
She wouldn't now.
Dash was suddenly filled with the solace of self-respect. It lifted her from within, exposing the hard parts of her will, her resolve, the inner strength that defined who she was and what she did. She would go on, because Dash couldn't not.
She struggled upright in wet sand, its grit chafing her hide where it had worked its way beneath her tattered uniform. She was careful not to put any weight on her left foreleg—not yet.
Blinking the sand and salt from her eyes, she saw that she was on a beach. She saw that it was daytime. She saw that somehow—and she had no idea how—she had survived her fall.
Dash looked around more closely, trying to tell where she was, but all she could see was sand and water. Not the ocean, though she could tell it was close because of the empty horizon beyond a narrow bay and sandy dunes.
The tops of bushes, or perhaps even trees, jutted above the choppy surface of the bay. An unusually high tide, she decided, probably due to the storm.
Maybe I landed in the water, and it broke my fall. That seemed unlikely, but more likely than anything else she could think of—not that she had any other ideas. Though she had woken up right at the edge of the lapping waves. Just one more impossibility.
She began to assess her condition. Perhaps it was a sign of her personal priorities, but she tested her wings first. A careful extension and a few test flaps later, and she deemed them still functional, if very stiff and sore. Then she turned her attention to her leg.
Dash couldn't straighten it, and bending it was made difficult by the obvious swelling that restricted motion. There was pain, but not so much that she thought it was broken. She'd had broken bones before and knew that this much movement would be impossible if there was a serious fracture.
The involuntary gasp of pain when she tried to put some weight on it eliminated all thought of walking away from here, but then that was never her intention to begin with.
It was only then that she suddenly realized something was missing.
The hurricane!
Dash looked up at the sunny sky above her, staring at the cloudless blue that chilled her to the bone. The storm isn't here! It's gone up the coast. That means it's already rolled over the train, Manehatten, and everypony I care about. I didn't stop it. I couldn't even try.
I've failed!
Scratching, slithering shadows again began to stir within her mind, but she held up her courage as a shield and ignored them.
Dash spun around—as best as she could on only three good legs—looking for any sign of the hurricane, but everywhere she looked was the same gray horizon. She couldn't even tell which direction it had gone. Back in Manehatten, she had seen from the maps that it was moving inland and north. If she headed in that direction, maybe, just maybe, she could catch up to it.
She shook off as much of the sand as she could and started to flex her wings in preparation for flight. She stretched each good leg and twisted her neck this way and that, eliciting a flurry of cracks and pops from her abused joints.
Wings outstretched, she prepared to leap into the air—just as a brief gust of sea wind blew over her.
She hesitated.
Why, she wasn't sure. The short gust had brought back memories of flying through the storm, and for a moment she thought her hesitation was due to fear.
No, she decided, this isn't fear. It was something else.
She turned around to look in the direction the gust had come from and squinted at the gray horizon. Why is it gray back there? That's not where the storm should be.
Again Dash looked all around, noting the consistency of the horizon in every direction. She scowled, thinking, This isn't right, and she leapt into the air.
She quickly ascended into the clear blue sky in a tight spiral, until she could see both land and sea—and something else. She stared, uncomprehending, before suddenly it all fell into place and she was inexplicably reminded of Soarin's words to her on the train:
"Keep your center, your core, clear and bright and warm. That way you can plan, innovate, and react without hindrance when the need arises. To have control of anything, you must first have control of your center."
All around her was a wall of storm. From up here, she could clearly see the sharp edge where it touched the water and sand, cutting the world in two and creating a circular pocket of calm.
In the center, it was clear and bright and warm.
The storm was hollow, and she was still inside it.
She hovered in place and gawked, amazed at the impossibility of so sharp a contrast between storm and sky, the symmetry on such a massive scale. High Winds wasn't kidding when she called it organized chaos. This is incredible!
But deadly, she reminded herself. And I still have a job to do.
Dash continued to hover in place, however. She was at the edge of an idea, and she didn't want to lose it. Soarin's words fit what she was seeing amazingly well, but he hadn't been talking about a storm. She had thought the advice passed down to him from Summer Zephyr was about keeping calm in adversity, but now she was thinking there was more to it than that.
She spoke her thoughts aloud. "I think I understand what you were telling me, Soarin." Her voice was barely there, hoarse and raspy. She tried to clear her dry throat and continue, hoping that hearing her words would help the idea fully form.
"I think I understand now. It doesn't come easily to me, but I can see the importance of—of not just staying calm, but being calm. It's like all my bad thoughts and feelings are little monsters in my house, and I need to keep them out of the room I'm in so they won't distract me."
She grimaced. She had so many little monsters in there, too, like her insecurity that she wasn't good enough to be a Wonderbolt. On its own, she could master it. It was when her darker thoughts all ganged up on her that she lost control—or when they popped up unexpectedly and surprised her.
"If I find them all and give each one its own room, then I know where they are and they can't sneak up on me anymore." It felt like she was opening a gift and finding something useful—just what she needed. "But if I ignore them, or pretend they don't exist, they are free to do whatever they want. I'd be losing control."
The idea was filling her with excitement and the desire to put it to the test. It wasn't about trying to change who you were, it was about choosing only the best parts of yourself to give center stage.
She imagined all her mental monsters hidden away inside her mind and resolved never to ignore or deny them again. They were a part of her, and to hate them was to hate herself. She couldn't love them, but she could accept their presence and give each its own place in her head so she could find them again. Then they would be under her control. Her fears and faults couldn't take her by surprise if she remained aware of them.
I know what the best parts of me are, and I know my not-so-best parts. So today I'm going to make use of only the best. Tomorrow too. And the next day!
Dash felt more alive than she could ever remember feeling before. Here, suspended in a clear sky, in a sunny calm surrounded by raging winds, she felt a sense of completeness fill her. A newfound energy bubbled up from within, making her hide bristle and her feathers tremble in the still air.
Her thoughts were clear and bright and warm.
She whooped and did a backwards somersault in midair. "I control my center!" she shouted.
That was the moment the idea crystallized in her head. The center!
The hurricane was too big to simply kick to shreds like a little puff-cloud over Ponyville. It was too big to push around or maneuver where she liked. It was too big to kill.
But it has a center, and that center is much, much smaller.
She would control its center.
Dash smiled.
———
Dash tumbled through the air, her wings snapping wide and lifting her just before she hit the surface of the water. She panted heavily as she flew back into the slowly moving center of the storm, wiping the sea-spray from her eyes as she went.
Once more gliding under a clear sky, she skimmed above the huge, angry waves and caught her breath. Okay... This isn't working.
Her plan to slow the spin of the hurricane by flying around the inner wall of the storm, opposite to the winds, was turning out to be impossible. She might have the wing power for it, but the gusts made it too unstable. She couldn't maintain steady flight like that for long.
I can't slow it down, but maybe—She thought about all the cloud spinning practice she had done in the past. That was one of those tricks where only another pegasus could truly appreciate the skill it demonstrated. Spin it too slow, and it would stop almost immediately. Spin it too fast and—
It flies apart!
Instead of flying against the winds, she could fly with them, speeding the spin of the storm's core. She had no illusions that she, a single pegasus, could make the whole storm spin faster, but maybe she could make it unstable, like the little clouds she spun too fast back home.
Okay, it's not a great plan, but it's better than getting knocked into the sea by going the other way. She grimaced. I just hope I won't be making things worse.
Dash adjusted her uniform to relieve the bunching around her wings, taking care not to unduly flex her injured leg. All the tears and rips in the fabric made it hang strangely on her body. It was quite a mess, but she couldn't bring herself to discard it, even as ruined as it was.
She pulled the hood back, feeling the sting of the multiple small cuts on her face—made all the more painful by the salty spray. The uniform might help with aerodynamics, but it offered no protection from abrasion.
Her goggles were useless, cracked and broken after her unconscious fall. They hung around her neck, trapped in the folds of the hood on her back.
At least flying with the wind, I'll be able to see.
She took a deep breath and, summoning the last reserves of her strength, once more flew towards the wall of darkness.
———
"Oh yeeaaaaaaaah!" Dash hollered above the roar of wind.
This was speed like she had never experienced before. The strength of the storm beneath her wings gave her an intoxicating feeling of power and control. What little she could see of the sand and surf below was an indistinct blur.
Faster. Faster!
Dash leaned into her flight, pushing herself to greater effort, gaining more speed. All thoughts of pain or discomfort were pushed out of her mind by the heady thrill of surfing the winds of a hurricane.
This was almost fun.
If it wasn't so hard.
Behind her, the rainbow streak streaming away from her tail was growing longer, even as the violent winds ripped it into shreds. Soon, she could see tattered remnants of it in front of her—faint traces of color amid the cloud. She realized she was starting to lap her own contrail.
It made her want to go even faster.
Dash gritted her teeth, squinted her watering eyes against the buffeting air, and poured every ounce of her remaining strength into her wings. The irregularities of the storm's gusts beat against her injured leg, once more adding pain to her awareness. Her other leg remained outstretched before her, punching her way through the air, reaching for her own circling rainbow.
Dash felt the air bunching up in front of her, wrapping around her in a standing wave. This is it, she thought. This was how it felt to start a sonic rainboom. But what will it be like in winds like this? Is it even possible?
It was definitely rougher going than she had ever felt before when approaching that moment, just before breaking through in an explosion of contrail light—or bouncing off it hard and tumbling uncontrolled out of the sky. She was balancing on the sharpest of points—one wrong twist of wing and everything would be over now.
The thought of not trying didn't even cross her mind. No matter the outcome, this was the moment. This is it, for good or bad. If she had any hope of saving her friends, and everypony else at peril from this massive hurricane, she had to push through.
Her senses were screaming at her: the deafening roar of the air, the pummeling hits of rock-hard gusts, the taste of blood, the pain. They all conspired to knock her out of the sky. It was a scintillating flame deep within her, the arrow of her heart, that propelled her onward as she held tight to a single thought.
Loyalty.
Rainbow Dash pushed.
———
A tiny, glowing light trailing a streak of color circled the eye of the hurricane, impossibly fast. The streak broke up in ragged tatters farther behind and around the curve of the storm wall but was still visible for the whole circumference.
Around and around the point went, painting streaks of vibrant light upon the dark clouds, infusing the wall of wind and rain with all the colors of the rainbow.
Then the point, moving even faster, started to flicker and pulse—a silent flashing at the edge of chaos. As it flickered, the rainbow trail it left behind became more solid, no longer breaking up in the strong winds. The solid trail of light grew longer.
The moment the bow's leading edge caught up to its tail, the very air seemed to bend and warp, shaking the heart of the hurricane.
The sky filled with light.
———
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It's nice to see this updating
Yeah, update! I'm gonna have to reread this thing from the beginning to take in the awesomeness
Agree, it's been quite some time but I always kept this near the front of my stack. The writer is really good at portraying the characters emotion and they have a real good sense of imagination for the surroundings, I was so excited to see this drop in the box.
I wish to thank the author for not abandoning this great story. and may they continue to bring joy to the readers.
( I know kinda sappy but it's around 01:00 and am tired but full of joy at this update.)
Wait... What? I just started this not more than an hour ago!
And I'm already up to date on it??
Dude... Keep going on it! This is great!
~Skeeter The Lurker
The writing in this chapter was amazing! Please post another update soon, I need to see what happens.
Holy CRAP.
Did she just knock the shit out of a HURRICANE with a SONIC RAINBOOM?
Must see what happens next.
What if Dash could go faster than the speed of sound? What if she went into light speed? What if she went even faster?
She'd warp the very fabric of time-space continuum... and end up in the past of the future's present?
Moar Please
if you don't mind 
This story is the best RD centric story that I can remember reading.
Please don't leave us hanging for too long!
The show MUST go on!
2301334
Hmm. Not clear? The center of the bridge collapsed taking part of the train with it. I'll look back at that part as I go through the whole story making corrections, tweaks, and clarifications as needed before I eventually submit it all to EQD. NO huge changes like before—just small touches.
Yesterday I altered a sentence in both chapters 1 and 2 to take into account the events from episode 7 of season 3, Wonderbolts Academy, which now puts this story sometime between that and Twilight's transformation.
Once this gets submitted, I don't want to feel the need to make any more changes, no matter how slight, because I won't touch it again. It's time to add that final polish. :)
Oh, and I just finished chapter 8, the last and final chapter to the story. I'll post it once it is fully proofed and edited. I'm both happy and sad to see this story end. :)
2296404
So she's be exactly where she already is?
2302981
Thank Celestia this was updated. That was an amazing chapter. You seem to capture Rainbow Dash's personality so extremely well. Everything she says or thinks, I hear in her voice, and could picture her saying. You didn't disappoint.
2307595 That's the paradox, I guess...
Major props to you for coming back to finish this story after such a long break.
Yay ima comment on fimfiction.net
Dash is such a hero in this one, and I like the way you made it believable, dealing with her insecurities and such. I guess you could now let her die in the moment of her life's fulfillment, but that would be a) heartbreaking and b)somewhat dramatic. DON'T DO IT
Now THAT was a great chapter! I love the way you depicted annd described the scene leading up to Dash's Sonic Rainboom. I think that you have done a truly amazing job with this story and I can't wait to read that last chapter.
I have to say, I did not expect to find genuine philosophical inspiration in a My Little Pony fanfic. That I now have fragments of Rainbow's eye-of-the-storm monologue written up on Post-Its all over my apartment is a testament to your ability to shatter expectations. Thank you for this story.
Finally got around to reading the new chapters - I love how you tied Soarin's advice from before into defeating the hurricane. It was both philosophical and a really nice piece of continuity (I'm glad I reread the previous chapters before moving on - it made it that much better). Well, one chapter to go - onward!