Chapter 3: Along the Watchtower
Along the Watchtower ɿɘwoƚʜɔƚɒW ɘʜƚ ǫnolA
Rainbow Dash ran down the sidewalk. Naturally, she was in a hurry to get somewhere. Which time was the charm, again? Seventh? Close enough. Over the course of the weekend, she’d tried tracking down every monster alarm she’d heard. She hadn’t been able to find half of them, and the rest she’d only shown up to after the fact. But she’d been getting closer each time.
She came to a stop at a corner, listening closely for the direction of the whistling ring to decide her next turn. So she was getting a tad farther into the city than she knew the way back from; that’s what buses were for. She had a good feeling about this time. She went right.
She soon found herself at a T-intersection in the road, in front of an office-looking building with reflective glass panes for walls. If these monsters use mirrors, this place was just asking for trouble. The whistling ring was definitely coming from around here, but a bit more…in there! She saw them in the reflection, a pair of the black and red things that had attacked her and Fluttershy, walking up the street away from the building. That’s when she realized the monster alarm wasn’t the only sound she was hearing.
The growing growl of an approaching motorcycle came up behind her, and she saw a shadow in the reflection cut through the monsters without affecting them—it had to be on this side. She twisted around to the right as quick as she could, but the motor’s growl stayed behind her and a gust of wind rushed by as she turned, and she heard a whooshing sound behind her as she skidded to a stop facing away from the window. Oh, he’s good.
Speeding through a mirror-walled tunnel was the figure on the black motorcycle, wearing a black jacket and helmet as always. An indigo energy sphere with a glowing equator ring expanded from the figure’s belt, covering the entire motorcycle, before the equator split into a pair of rings that began rotating in opposite directions. They spun until they overlapped at a vertical orientation, continuing to spin, but now depositing a black suit with gold-bordered indigo armor plates onto the figure as they passed over him. The rings overlapped again at the sphere’s equator, and the sphere dissipated, leaving the figure in full armor. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, metal plates began expanding onto the motorcycle, covering over it with an exterior shell. The sides were covered with a row of pennant-shaped indigo plates like would adorn a jousting knight’s steed, a golden horseshoe folded out onto the back as a tailfin, a gold strip ran down the front fairing to the headlights, and a pair of silver triangles latched onto either side of the front wheel, adorned with horizontal slits like the armored figure’s helmet. The Armored Hero accelerated towards the end of the tunnel.
Rainbow Dash immediately turned back around to the window to try and watch the reflection.
Behind the mirrors, in a world with all the same buildings but devoid of people, a pair of Gelnewts walked along the city street. Suddenly an indigo-plated motorcycle flew from the glass of a building’s window and sped towards them. They turned to it, but the Armored Hero rammed the motorcycle into the one on the left, sending it flying backwards, before skidding the back of the bike around in a clockwise spin, hitting the other one and knocking it for several backwards somersaults. The motorcycle came to a stop facing the first Gelnewt.
The Hero reached over to the armament strapped to his left forearm, a thick black plate bearing on top a gold horseshoe, the outer edges of which hung slightly over the sides of the plate, around a gold horsehead silhouette symbol. He grabbed the rightside arc of the horseshoe and pulled; the right third of the horseshoe pivoted at its base, sliding out from inside the plate a covered tray that was attached to that segment of the horseshoe. He reached down to the indigo block held in the front of his belt, putting his finger on a patch of blue seen through a square hole on the right side and sliding out a card, holding it up. The card was dark purple, with the gold horsehead silhouette in the upper left corner and seven downward-pointing gold bars along the top of the card to the symbol’s right and above the words “Sword Vent”; the middle of the card bore the image of a knight’s broadsword with the crossguard of a gold horseshoe, tips pointing upward, and in the background was an arc of flaming purple smoke; below the image was a thin black bar with two yellow rectangular tabs at the left side; under this was a silver block, the left chunk filled with unreadably small text, and the right quarter featuring the red word “Attack” abover the number “2000”. He slid the card into the tray through a thin slot and pushed the side of the horseshoe closed to its original position, the horsehead symbol giving a brief golden flash.
Sword Vent
There was a flash in the sky above, and a glowing shape began falling towards towards the Hero, spinning as it went. He held out his right hand and caught it, the glow fading to reveal the sword pictured on the card. He revved the motorcycle’s engine as the Gelnewt in front of him began getting up, then sped forward to charge the Gelnewt, slashing it with the sword as he passed, sending off a spray of sparks and knocking the Gelnewt over again.
The second Gelnewt had also gotten up, and it reached over its shoulders to grab the giant X-shaped shuriken weapon from its back, holding it by one of its blades and throwing it, sending it flying and spinning horizontally at the Armored Hero.
The Armored Hero turned his head and saw it. He turned his motorcycle to the left and, using the front wheel as a pivot point, spun the bike around in a full circle, kicking the back wheel up into the air and knocking the shuriken away before planting the wheel back down, skidding a final half-turn to face the now unarmed Gelnewt.
He tossed his sword to his left hand, grabbing it handle-upwards by the horseshoe crossguard, before pulling the covered card tray back open and taking out another card from the deck in his belt. This one was blue-violet, with most of the same aesthetics of the first card, including a 2000 in the lower right corner, but with a different name and bearing the image of a gold horseshoe leaving a gold streak indicating a spinning flight path over a background of blue smoke. He slid the card in through the slot and pushed the tray back in.
Arc Vent
There was another flash in the sky, and a smaller glowing object dropped down. The Armored Hero shot his hand up and grabbed it, a golden horseshoe, bringing it down to eye level. Pulling back to the right, he swung his arm across and threw the horseshoe spinning through the air. The Gelnewt tried jumping out of the way, but the horseshoe hit it on the side, causing a spray of sparks, and sending it in a full turn while it fell.
The Gelnewt jumped back up and crouched menacingly at the Armored Hero, but he simply sat on his motorcycle. That’s when the spinning horseshoe’s flight slowed down and stopped before starting back to where it came from. It hit the Gelnewt’s shoulder from behind, flipping the unsuspecting Mirror Monster over forwards to land on its back as the horseshoe continued back to the Hero, right into his outstretched hand.
The Armored Hero stared down the horseshoe as if it was a sniper sight at the Gelnewt again struggling to its feet. He raised it over his shoulder, and as the Gelnewt looked up at him, he catapulted it forward. It flew directly at the Gelnewt and hit it in the chest, exploding on impact and knocking it back to the ground again. The Gelnewt started squirming as its outlines began glowing white and it dissipated into a cloud of smoke.
By now the first Gelnewt had gotten to its feet and taken out its own shuriken. It had seen how easily its comrade had lost its weapon, so it wasn’t about to make the same move.
The Armored Hero grabbed his sword in his right hand again and revved the motorcycle, speeding forward at the Gelnewt. They each pulled back their weapons. Just as he was passing, the Gelnewt swung its shuriken, but the Armored Hero sprung down his motorcycle’s kickstand and jumped into the air, flipping over the Gelnewt’s attack. The bike skidded to a stop as the Hero landed behind the Gelnewt and spun around, slashing it across the back. He spun until the Gelnewt was behind him again, and the Gelnewt began collapsing to its knees as it dissipated into smoke.
Back on the other side of the mirrors, Rainbow Dash knocked on the window. Feeling that he was being watched, the Armored Hero turned to the glass building. He saw Rainbow Dash in the reflection. When she noticed he’d seen her, she stopped knocking and started waving.
The Armored Hero sighed and shook his head. “Bad idea, there,” he said under his breath. He walked over to his motorcycle and got on. Flipping up the kickstand, he revved the engine.
Rainbow Dash stopped waving. What was he…? The Armored Hero sped forward at the window.
“Whoa!” Rainbow Dash let out as she ducked back. The Armored Hero warped into the window…
And then nothing happened. Rainbow Dash looked back up to find the reflection empty of any armored vigilantes on motorcycles. She turned and looked around to see if he was anywhere in sight. Nope, just the city. She thought she’d figured it out that the reflection world, almost certainly what was at the end of that glass tunnel she’d seen inside the window last week, was connected to this world only through the same windows in each place. Apparently, you could also go through one window and come out a different one. That sure complicated things.
Rainbow Dash gave a sigh and started walking back up the sidewalk. She took another look around at the city. Where would the nearest bus stop be?
The figure sat on his black motorcycle, looking around the corner of the office building as Rainbow Dash left. She was getting too close for her own good.
* * *
Later That Evening
“Standing by.”
“And now,” said Pinkie, “after four straight victories—one of them against me—Rainbow Dash is just one win away from being crowned the ultimate champion of the random old video games we found in a back closet somewhere, games so obscure that no one even knew they existed! Or at least we didn’t.” The girls were gathered back at Pinkie’s house to blow off steam to end the weekend, sitting in various manners in a rough cluster around her room’s TV with the gamebox hooked up. “Her final opponent,” Pinkie continued, “Sunset Shimmer. The game this time…,” Pinkie picked up the game disk’s empty case and read off the name, “something called ‘RaceLiner’, no space. Looks like it has trains on the cover.”
The TV showed, in decent-enough graphics, a desertscape under a rainbow-hued sky, with a pair of nondescript trains separated by a split screen: a green and black steam engine on the left, controlled by Rainbow Dash, and a white bullet train with a black roof on the right, controlled by Sunset.
“Ready to go!” the game announced as the words flashed onscreen. “Count, Zero!”
“Grammar much?” Sunset commented.
“Eh, it’s probably just a bad translation,” Rainbow Dash replied.
The camera views backed out and up from the trains, focusing on the region ahead of them, notably lacking train tracks. Then, sets of train track crossbeams began to pop up and unfold from the ground in front of the trains, a pair of rails shooting forward to extend over them as the trains jolted into movement. They coasted for a few seconds as the arrow controls hovered over them. The objective was simply: direct where the tracks are to spawn to lead your train around obstacles, a pair of icons moving up the border between the screens to display relative progress.
Sunset gave her train a speed boost to take the lead, only to see the first obstacle, a cartoonish rock formation that couldn’t possibly remain standing, rush in from the horizon. She turned the newly forming track hard to the right, but as the train took the turn, it screeched as it tilted over to its left, the edges of her side of the screen flashing red.
“It could’ve told you that you could derail yourself,” Sunset huffed as her train rocked back onto the tracks, now with a flashing arrow over it pointing left to tell her what direction she was supposed to be going. Her progress icon stopped moving as Rainbow’s took the lead.
Rainbow Dash’s train instead encountered a field of cacti, where she zigzagged to weave around each one individually as if it would give her bonus points.
“Careful, Dash,” Pinkie spoke up, “you’re going too wide. That train track-looking bar on top steadily running down makes it look like if you use up too much track, you’ll run out before the level’s over.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Rainbow Dash responded without listening.
Both trains soon approached a massive stone wall with a narrow canyon entrance carved into it. At least, the wall on Rainbow Dash’s screen had the canyon entrance, as Sunset realized that her first turn had put her too far to the right, and so turned back left and accelerated to compensate. The green engine rolled into the canyon, but Sunset’s train was in the middle of another sharp turn to avoid hitting the wall that gave her a red warning flash when she saw the entrance quickly approaching. She calculated that trying to turn in while this close to the wall would cause her train to fall off the track for sure, and she didn’t have time to make an arc left to give herself a wider turn, so she just let the entrance fly by. Another flashing arrow told her to turn right as she rolled along the side of the infinitely-stretching wall.
The canyon had less room to navigate, but also fewer obstacles, and Rainbow Dash barely had to turn to avoid them.
“Five for five, here I come,” said Rainbow Dash, leaning back. “There’s no way Sunset can win now, so just call it. I’ll let the boiler cool down and just coast to victory.”
Sunset gave a disappointed look…and then smirked. She started hitting controls in what seemed to be a random order, the train jerking back and forth from slight turns and turn-backs.
“If you just want to crash and give up, go ahead,” Rainbow said, seeing the bullet train’s jolting. Suddenly, several red and white rings appeared in front of Sunset’s train, and the number sequence “555-913-333” typed itself onto the screen.
“Complete,” the game announced, and as the bullet train sped through the rings, the front section of the front car separated into panels that folded back, revealing a pair of long orange windows. The train’s whistle howled, and the spawning point of the tracks began rising into air, leading the train up into the sky. Sunset then turned it right to pass over the top of the wall, hitting the accelerator several times and rocketing forward.
“What the?” Rainbow Dash stammered, staring at Sunset’s side of the screen. “Okay, that’s it, hold up. How did you do that?”
Sunset smiled. “Like I’d tell you.”
The green and black steam engine continued forward, exiting the canyon into another open desert space, this time with a large suspension bridge across a giant canyon cut into the ground crossing the screen in the distance. However, as the player supposed to be steering it wasn’t looking at this side of the screen, it plowed headfirst into a large boulder and exploded.
“And like it would help you now,” Sunset added. Rainbow Dash looked back at her screen to see the words “Game Over” in front of a looped replay of the crash from different angles.
“What? No!” she exclaimed. “Oh, come on!”
Applejack high-fived Sunset for a successful victory over Rainbow Dash.
“Ah, so that would explain why the cover showed the white train with orange front windows,” Pinkie said, taking a closer look at the case, also seeing that the green train was shown with a pair of yellow bull horns on the front that had been absent from the version Rainbow had controlled.
“No fair,” Rainbow Dash said to a smug Sunset, “you distracted me!”
“You’ve done worse,” Applejack interjected.
Rainbow Dash turned her head to Applejack. “Oh, so you’re the one who put her up to this.” She squinted. “Sokka.” {Japanese: ‘I see.’}
Rainbow Dash and Applejack locked stares. Not wanting things to escalate further, Pinkie pulled out her new smartphone to try and diffuse the situation.
“Well, that was fun. What now?” she said with forced eagerness, sliding over to the two. “Anyone wanna try to beat my high score on Fruit Samurai?” Pinkie held up the phone between them, its screen showing an orange with a padlock loop over it. She tapped the orange with her thumb, and the front half flipped down on a set of hinges to reveal the orange’s sliced center, a start menu popping out of it. Rainbow Dash and Applejack, however, were unaffected. “I, uh, think the new chainsaw expansion pack is out,” she added in mild desperation. “Mythbusters approved?”
A beep came from Sunset’s laptop, sitting on the corner of the bed.
“Ah, the rendering’s done,” Sunset said, jumping up to go to it. “Right on time.”
Rainbow and AJ glanced over before turning back to each other. Rainbow Dash said, “This isn’t over.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Applejack replied casually.
The group took positions gathered around Sunset’s laptop as she opened a new video file.
“Okay,” Sunset said to introduce the video, “so I took the video that Rainbow Dash got of the Armored Hero, turned it right side up, then went to each frame one at a time and moved them around on a larger background so that the Hero is in the center of the playback footage while the borders jump around. Why the news doesn’t already do this to bystander videos before showing them so that they’re actually watchable is beyond me.”
“I hope I’m not pressing too far,” Rarity said, “but if you knew how to do all of this digital finesse, how come when you tried framing Twilight for destroying the Fall Formal, your method of choice was a printer and a pair of scissors?”
“Same as why I kept my old journal, I’d bet,” Sunset said with a sigh. “Deep down, I knew I didn’t want it to work.”
Sunset hit play on the video. The playback wasn’t flawless, blurred streaks occasionally shot in a general direction from every well-lit point to indicate that the phone had bounced with every step Rainbow Dash had taken, but it was much easier to look at one point on the screen and see the key point of focus. The Armored Hero stood still looking in the direction of the camera for a second before turning his head to look to the right side of the screen and throwing his left arm up to block something. He turned and kicked out with his right foot before reaching for something on his left wrist, then down to his belt, seeming to pull something out before moving it to the thing on his wrist. A golden glow suddenly fell from the top of the screen, and when he caught it, the glow faded, revealing the glint of a curved golden object.
“Yeah, I saw him do that through the window earlier,” Rainbow Dash added. “It was some sort of exploding…boomerang thing. He also has a sword.”
The Armored Hero suddenly turned to the window beside him and slashed the object to the left, sending a spray of sparks flying from a point in midair. Then retracing the same path with a rightward swing, threw the object to the right. A spray of sparks shot from a point in midair before the object flew out of view, then came flying back into view, a second spray of sparks coming from the same point, and being caught in the Armored Hero’s waiting hand. Throughout this, he had been getting smaller in the picture as Rainbow Dash had gotten farther away, and now disappeared as she had turned a corner. Sunset stopped the video.
“And that’s it,” she said. The group members both stood and sat in silence. Sunset looked around to each of them, some of them looking back and some looking at others. “Okay, since I have the journal, I’ll be the one to ask what we’re all thinking,” Sunset said. “Do we ask Twilight for help on this one?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” said Pinkie.
“We have been relyin’ on her a lot,” said Applejack.
“We wouldn’t want to be too much of a bother,” said Fluttershy.
“How exactly would she help in this situation?” asked Rarity.
“I’m getting the feeling that this one isn’t actually magic-related at all,” said Rainbow Dash. “I mean, going into the mirror didn’t feel at all like ponying-up. It was a lot more…‘manufactured’, if that makes sense.”
Sunset processed what the others had said. “Well if these things use mirrors, we can’t be too careful about them stumbling across the portal, even if it is off at the time. Twilight would definitely need to know, at the very least. Hmm…” She looked over at her bag in the corner. Rarity, who was nearest, reached over and grabbed it, handing it to Rainbow Dash, who handed it to Sunset. Sunset fished out the magic journal and a pen, opening the book to a blank page. “I’ll tell her what we know, but I’ll make it clear that she doesn’t need to show up just yet. The portal being open at all might not be a good thing.” She put pen to paper. “ ‘Dear Princess Twilight…’ ”
* * *
The Next Day
Rainbow Dash jogged down the street, heading for Canterlot High. She was at least two stops ahead of the bus, a respectable pace. That’s when she heard the whistling ring. She skidded to a halt and looked around, listening for the source. She took a glance at her watch. She had time. She took off after it.
After a few wrong turns and a dead end, Rainbow Dash found herself entering a back alley. The first thing she heard was impacting metal, and she turned to her right to see the Armored Hero give a Gelnewt one last sword slash before it fell to the ground and evaporated into smoke along with two others lying nearby, leaving her and the Hero alone in the alley.
The Armored Hero stepped his extended right foot back to stand tall and take a deep breath. Then he glanced towards the sound of footsteps to see Rainbow Dash running over to him. He let out his breath as a sighing groan as he dropped his shoulders and tilted his head back while turning away.
“What’s going on here, huh?” Dash said as she slowed to a stop. “What are these things, what to they want, and how can I help?”
The Armored Hero raised a palm-up open left hand but dropped it. “You can start by not following me,” he said over his shoulder.
“Not an option,” said Rainbow Dash. “My friends and I need to know this.” The Armored Hero started walking around her. “Ever since I got dragged into that window,” she continued, “I can hear this whistling sound that tells me whenever those things are up to something, an early warning system I’m betting you’ve got too, so I just know that you’ll be there to stop them.”
“So?” said the Armored Hero, continuing his circle.
Rainbow Dash gave a sinister grin. “I’m gonna keep showing up to each and every one of these to bother you until you tell me something helpful.”
The Armored Hero stopped walking. He turned to look at her. “Not an option,” he quoted back.
“Hey,” she started, “you can’t just—” The Armored Hero took a step away and warped through the screens of a pile of old TVs sitting along the alley wall. Rainbow Dash dropped her arms. “Or, maybe you can.”
She glanced down at her watch. She slapped her hand over it in shock and took off again.
In a dark, clearly evil room somewhere, a holographic screen showed these events unfolding. After the girl ran away, the screen rewound to replay the part of her and the armored figure after the Gelnewts had been defeated. A pair of perpendicular lines swept in and intersected over the armored figure’s belt buckle, but flashed red. Something about it just kept blocking any attempt to trace it. The playback continued as the armored figure left, and the girl turned to leav—the image froze. It zoomed in on the girl.
“I recognize a familiar face when I see one,” said the sinister voice of a figure standing in the darkness, “and you’ve been popping up everywhere. It’s starting to get annoying.”
The figure snapped his fingers, and with a ripple effect transition, the image shifted to a recording of the girl’s first run-in with the Gelnewts. The figure watched as she threw her elbow back and knocked the Gelnewt behind her over.
“The standard welcome party didn’t seem to work the first time,” he observed. “I guess I’ll need to try something a bit…more.”
* * *
After school, the group met in the music room, though band practice was now becoming more of a cover story for their meetings than anything else.
“I didn’t have a chance to say this before,” Sunset said upon entering, taking her journal from her backpack, “because it just came in in the middle of last period—heck, I haven’t even read it yet—but we got a response from Twilight.” She flipped through to the page as the others dropped their stuff and gathered around.
Dear Sunset and Friends,
While I don’t immediately recognize the description of the phenomenon nor the monsters causing it, and my initial search has revealed nothing, I’ll consult my more advanced sources and get back to you again as soon as I can. Oh, and don’t worry. Since this book was how I activated the portal the last time, my using it for our correspondence has kept it out of the mechanism since I got back. The portal won’t be opening any time soon.
Always here for you guys,
Twilight Sparkle.
“Hmm,” Sunset mumbled, staring at the page, “that last part was a bit…overconfident, might have to get back to her about that.”
“So,” spoke up Applejack, “looks like we’re on our own for now, huh?”
“Or for longer,” said Sunset, looking up. “Well, Rainbow Dash, you did say you didn’t think this was magic-related. If you’re right, that might mean there’s just nothing there for her to find.”
“Then until we hear something more,” said Pinkie, “I guess in the meantime we’d better work on our mugic power just in case.”
Sunset looked over and stared. “Mugic?” she asked flatly.
“Yep,” Pinkie said, “magic through music. ‘Mugic’.” The others joined Sunset in staring at her. “What, never heard of Chaotic?” She shrugged. “Shame.”
“But…,” Rarity said hesitantly, “how much good would that actually do?”
“You’re right,” Pinkie said, thinking, “the same old stuff might not be enough anymore. So if we’re still gonna use the power of pure sound, we’ll just have to be a bit more…proactive.” Pinkie stepped her left foot back and took a fighting stance with her drumsticks. Standing in an empty dark expanse, she was clad in a shiny pink suit with silver shoulder straps and dark pink gloves, thin pink branches reaching in from the sides of a black face cover, and a pair of short silver spikes on her head resembling her ponied-up ears. The drumsticks in her hands were thickened and painted pink, with transparent pink clubbed ends.
From the distance, the spectral form of an orange Siren monster flew at her. She unclipped a disk bearing her cutie mark form her belt and threw it at the Siren, the disk adhering to the glowing red gem on its chest and spinning, expanding into a large shield. Pinkie raised her club drumsticks above her head. As the Siren reached her, she swung the drumsticks down and hit the shield, a pink shockwave washing over the Siren.
PIN
The Siren stopped immediately, stunned by the hit. Pinkie raised the drumsticks again and tapped them together once. After a second’s pause she brought the left one down onto the shield, and another pink shockwave spread over the Siren, then the right one, and another shockwave, then the left again, then the right. Left, right, left, right, left, right.
NKI
The Siren moaned as shockwave after shockwave spread over it. Pinkie beat left, right, left, then a one-two with right as she spun the left drumstick around, finger in a silver ring on the handle, and then started a rapid drumming left-right-left-right. The Siren let out a shrill hiss as cracks in it began reaching out from the edges of the shield.
PINKI
Left-right-left-right-both-both. Pinkie paused drumming and spun both drumsticks in her hands, drawing back to the left for a final double-hit, but Rainbow Dash grabbed her wrist before she could swing.
Pinkie looked around. Some of the others had noticeably backed away to a safer distance. Rainbow Dash let go and Pinkie stood back up to a normal stance, smiling innocently. “Heh, heh. Sorry.”
Knowing she would ultimately have missed nothing important, Applejack had ignored that blatant reference sequence to contemplate the new comment. “If I’m gettin’ her drift right,” she said, steering the conversation back on topic, “then I’d have to say I’m with Rarity on this one. Sure, we just need to play a few notes to pony up, but against the Sirens we needed to all be together in a full song before we could make anything of an offensive.”
“My point exactly,” Rarity said. “However powerful friendship through music may be, even with for instance a portable speaker system, I’m fairly sure those monsters would have more than enough time to attack us or just escape before we could even get a tune going.”
“Yeah, you have a point,” Pinkie relented, “and that would really only work if we all carried our instruments with us 24/7 wherever we went, which could be a tad tough for some of us.” She glanced over at her full drum set. Ten instruments at once was no problem for a few hours or so, but not all day every day.
“And I still don’t know how magic actually works in this world,” said Sunset. “If I did, maybe I could come up with some way we could use it to fight those monsters without needing our instruments. But as it is now, if we’re away from an amplifier, then I can’t say there’s much we can do.” She sighed. “At all, even,” she added under her breath.
“Not to mention,” Applejack added, “only Rainbow Dash can even see them.”
Having stepped back over to the wall, Rainbow Dash gave an audible sigh that almost sounded of relief. She looked up to see the others looking over at her.
“Heh, guess I was just waiting for someone else to bring all that up,” she said. “I didn’t want this to come out of nowhere. I…I think maybe we should put the band on hold until this window monster situation gets dealt with.” There was a second’s pause.
“Wait, really?” Applejack said with surprise. “I didn’t mean we needed to end the Rainbooms, just that it’s not the best way to fight those monsters.”
“Yeah,” said Pinkie, “why give up on something fun just because it’s not productive? That’s the whole point of fun things!”
“But we don’t even seem to use band time for the band anymore,” spoke up Fluttershy, “we’re kind of just hogging this room for a few hours every day. Principal Celestia only let us use this room for band purposes, after all. If we’re not doing that, we should probably let someone else have it.”
Rainbow Dash motioned at Fluttershy. “My arguments make themselves. The band isn’t helping against the monsters, and it would be wasting valuable time if we were even actually doing it when we were supposed to be.”
“Well, you did start this yourself,” Applejack sighed, “so I guess you can end it at any time, too. Guess I’d better go tell Principal Celestia about ‘musical differences’ or somethin’.”
“But if not the band, then what?” Sunset asked. “How do you even know there’s anything we can do? The Armored Hero is already on the case, maybe we should just let him handle it.”
“I don’t know that part yet,” admitted Rainbow Dash, “but I’m sure we’ll find an answer. We’re sitting right there on the edge of something, something big, and with our reputation, I’m sure it’ll just be a matter of time before the solution falls right in front of us. Right?” The others remained silent. “Liiittle bit a’ confidence here, guys.”
* * *
The Next Day
Rainbow Dash walked down the sidewalk on her way back from school, passing by a row of storefront windows. For once, she wasn’t in a hurry to be somewhere. Usually she’d have had somewhere to be right now, but not since yesterday. She wondered if it had really been the best idea to put the band on hold like—suddenly the whistling ringing sound filled her head again.
Shoving the thought away, she stopped and looked around, trying to judge direction. This one was close, the closest yet. So close, it could almost be…she turned and looked at the window next to her and saw herself in the reflection. Wearing a white scarf.
She glanced down, only confirming that she didn’t think she’d been wearing a scarf. She looked back up at her reflection to still see the scarf there. Cautiously, she reached up to her neck to try grabbing at it, but she saw her reflection’s hands go right through it. Now that she took a closer look, though, the scarf seemed to be made of silk. Spider web silk. And it didn’t just hang down. No, the end of it seemed to stretch out into the air over to…
To a rippling point on the window.
Rainbow Dash froze for only a moment. She grabbed frantically at her neck, but the silk web noose was still intangible. Then the web pulled taut, starting to pull her closer to the window. She braced her foot against the bottom edge of the window and leaned back, trying to swipe at the air where the strand seemed to be, but it again refused to be solid.
“No no no no no no no—”
A sudden tug from the web pulled her forward and into the window—a shrill whooshing noise attacked her ears as her vision was replaced by blurry silver streaks, quickly being replaced by near-epilepsy-inducing flashes all around, like looking through a subway train’s window while it’s speeding past the lights along the sides of the tunnel. She knew this had to be the tunnel of silvery glass boxes she’d seen the first time, now just at high speed, but only being ‘kinda sure’ about where it led to wasn’t the best comfor—
Rainbow Dash fell onto the concrete sidewalk. As the spinning in her head subsided, she looked up to see the same skyline she’d been looking at just a moment ago. Okay then, she was on the other side of the mirrors, she figured. Strange. It didn’t feel as ‘otherworldly’ as she’d expected it to b—she was suddenly reminded of her web noose as it pulled taut again and started dragging her backwards.
She grabbed at the loop of now-solid web to keep from being strangled as she was dragged on her back at high speed along the sidewalk, then suddenly around a sharp corner, sending her turning over, the sound of something very large skittering at other end of web. Shade covered over her from the shadow of a building as the pulling stopped and she rolled around, coming to a stop facing the direction she’d been being pulled.
She looked around to see a roundish courtyard area shaded by buildings close on each side. Then she looked in front of her. Turning around towards her, the source of the web, was a giant bronze mechanical spider with bronze-jointed silver legs, a silver hoop at the base of each leg, and that was almost tall enough to look you in the eye. Speaking of which, its eyes were a few empty hexagonal holes in its face, a pair of folded mandibles sitting below them. Patches of similar hexagonal holes were scattered over its body. Yeah, she’d rather not have looked.
The Dispider charged forward and pounced at her. With no time to get up and run, Rainbow Dash kicked up her legs. The soles of her feet caught the Dispider’s neck like a baseball glove, but its head continued at her, so she grabbed it mandibles, barely pushing it to a stop as it screeched at her, a foot from her face. It took a step forward, only pushing her back and not getting any closer, but her knees weren’t at a strong angle, and she could only hold it back for so long. Then she took a closer look at its mandibles. Those edges looked sharp enough.
“Chew on this!” she shouted, letting go with her right hand to grab the web rope still connecting them. It took this lessened resistance to push closer, but Rainbow Dash quickly wrapped the web around the joint in its mandible and grabbed it again, slipping her right foot off its neck before giving it a sharp knee in the throat. Its head jumped up and forward, pushing against her grip on its left mandible and slicing the web like a pair of scissors. The severed end drifted down and landed beside her head.
She pushed the Dispider’s head over to the left as she rolled right, jumping to her feet and taking off. The Dispider turned and grabbed at her with its left front leg, but she was out of reach, and it only impaled a hole into the concrete. It quickly took off after her.
As Rainbow Dash ran from the Dispider, her mind was also racing. Okay, so this was happening, what now? Where to go, how to lose this thing? Did it even matter? She couldn’t escape the reflection world, right? At least, she didn’t know how—What was taking the Armored Hero so long to show up! I mean, this was like, his job, wasn’t it?
Rainbow Dash looked over her shoulder if only to see how much the Dispider was gaining on her. How was something that big moving that fast? Was it hollow or something? She looked back forward only to see a dark horse standing in front of her rear up and flail its front hooves.
“Whoa!” Rainbow Dash let out as she leaned back and skidded underneath the horse, its golden horseshoes a second later smashing the Dispider in the face with a burst of sparks, knocking it back. The horse flailed its hooves again and let out a loud, metallic neigh, slamming them down to the ground between the Dispider and Rainbow Dash with another spit of sparks before giving a metallic snort with a shake of its head.
Now seemingly being guarded by it, Rainbow Dash took her chance to get a closer look at the horse. Like the Dispider, it also seemed mechanical, its body being covered in gold-bordered indigo armor plates resembling the decorative coverings draped over horses of medieval times. Its head was black and adorned with closely spaced metallic purple strips, glowing orange eyes peeking through, and its legs were black and silver metal. Rainbow Dash would’ve wondered where this robotic horse came from, but she’d just been pulled through a mirror by a giant robotic spider, so she was in full-on ‘just go with it’ mode. Oh, and the Dispider was getting back to its feet.
Sword Vent
Rainbow Dash jumped at the sudden disembodied voice. “Who’s ther—?”
A figure leapt down from the top of one of the surrounding buildings, a glowing object flying down beside him. He landed on the Dispider’s back and caught the object, which stopped glowing to reveal itself as a sword with a gold horseshoe as the guard. Well it’s about time he got here.
The Armored Hero raised the sword and prepared to stab it down into the Dispider, but the the spider shot a thick web strand backwards, snagging the wall of the building behind it and, grabbing the thread with its hind legs, yanked itself back and out from under the Hero. He fell to the ground as the Dispider skidded to a stop before racing back forward again.
The Armored Hero looked up at it, shouting, “Caballkhan!”
The mechanical horse in front of Rainbow Dash ran into the battle with a metallic neigh and cut in front of the Dispider. The Dispider stopped immediately and backed around to its right; Caballkhan cantered left to keep in front of it, each hoof-tap causing a spark. The Dispider lunged forward, but Caballkhan jumped back and spun around, delivering a powerful kick and sending the Dispider flying back before skidding across the ground with a spray of sparks, trying to use its legs to bring itself to a stop, and slamming into one of the buildings when it failed.
Rainbow Dash ran over to the Armored Hero as he got back up. “Are you okay?”
“Congratulations,” he replied without looking over. “By following me around so much, you’ve gotten their attention. Good luck losing it now.”
“Hey, I was just trying to he—,” but before she could finish, he’d rushed off at the Dispider.
The Dispider pried itself from its crater in the wall and landed on its legs with a thud, standing up tall again as the Armored Hero reached it. He wound back to swing, but the Dispider shot its front legs forward, forcing him to turn his sword flatside to deflect them. Holding the sword’s handle in his right hand and its guard in his left, the Armored Hero stepped back to allow the Dispider to lunge closer before stepping back forward and thrusting the sword forward under the power of both arms, stabbing the blade into the Dispider’s face.
The Dispider jolted and sprung back, the Hero’s two-point grip keeping the sword firmly in his hands as the monster dislodged itself.
“Try doing that by just holding the handle, movies,” he said under his breath, looking down at his hands’ placements. Then the Dispider’s harpoon-hooked silver leg hit his hands in a swipe from the left, sending the sword flying. He looked up at the Dispider. “Ow,” he scolded, shaking his stinging hands.
The sword clattered to the ground and slid across the pavement, skidding to a stop just in front of Rainbow Dash’s feet. She looked down and stared at it.
Well, there it was. The reason she was so into this mystery in the first place. The very thing, the very goal, that kept her going day in and day out. A way to help.
Arc Vent
She looked up to see the Armored Hero jump back while throwing one and then another gold horseshoe, the projectiles taking arcing paths before curving around and hitting the Dispider and exploding, one in the side, then in the face, forcing it back a step.
Rainbow Dash looked over at Caballkhan standing nearby; the mechanical horse looked back at her and snorted. She looked down at the sword again. Was it really a decision? She grabbed it and charged.
The Armored Hero jumped at the Dispider and threw his foot out in a kick, but was intercepted in midair by one of its legs and knocked flying back. He landed on both feet and a hand, and then a figure rushed past him. He quickly turned. “No, wait!”
Rainbow Dash ran up to the Dispider. She was gonna…yeah, that would help. What was she gonna—
The Dispider raised its left leg and stabbed it down, but Rainbow Dash came to a sudden complete stop and the leg hit the ground just in front of her. The Dispider threw the same leg forward to knock her back, but the sudden thought of a player from an opposing soccer team made Rainbow Dash instinctively spin and jump to the right, the leg flying harmlessly past her. Stop right there. Okay, even she was surprised that worked. But since it did…
She looked up to see the Dispider pulling the leg back at her, but she sidestepped it to the left, then jumped forward to avoid another leg swinging in from the side. The Dispider flailed and stabbed its legs this way and that, trying to back away in the process, but Rainbow Dash had been dreaming through how to outplay entire teams on her own, and she was easily weaving through its onslaught, moving closer with every step.
The Dispider backed up until it reached the building behind it. It reared up and prepared to bring all four of its front legs down at once, but Rainbow Dash seemingly just now remembered she was holding a sword. She jumped forward and to the right as its spearpoint legs shot down, swinging the blade up over her head, realizing just how heavy it was, and letting it all but slice down under its own weight. Just as its legs slammed into the ground, the sword hit its mark and cleaved off the Dispider’s front two left legs with a spray of sparks. The legs collapsed limp to the ground.
Hey, it kinda did look dark and hollow inside. That’s what Rainbow Dash would’ve thought, if she’d been looking at anything other than the sword. “Whoa, I…,” she looked up the blade to her hands, “I did it. I actually did it, I…”
A moaning sound drew her attention back to the world around her. She looked up to see the Dispider drawing back its right front leg. It shot the leg forward at her.
“Yi—!” She swung the sword up in front of her, it taking the hit but the force still sending her flying back, the world rushing forward away from her. She liked flying around on her ponied-up wings; she didn’t like this type of airborne. Still, she knew she’d like it even less when she came down for a land—
Her back slammed into something solid that let out a mechanical whinny, followed by a series of sparking taps as it staggered sideways to slow her down. Rainbow’s feet hit the ground and quickly started stepping back to keep pace with Caballkhan, slowly easing her to a stop. She dropped the sword’s tip to the ground and leaned on in, her quivering legs slowly getting their strength back. She looked up at Caballkhan, who gave a nod. She reached over and patted its shoulder.
Looking on, the Armored Hero sighed in relief. That could’ve gone sideways too easily. But since it didn’t…
He turned to look back at the Dispider. It was trying its best to crawl forward with two fewer legs on one side than usual. This thing was tough, but probably in as vulnerable a position as it was going to get. Now was the time. He grabbed the gold horseshoe on his left wrist’s armament and pulled open the card slotter, then slid a card out of the deck in his belt, staring at it a second. Deep red border, showing his gold Horse symbol over an indigo starburst background, and with an Attack of 5000.
“I guess this is what’s meant for the big ones,” he said, looking up at the Dispider again, which was slowly but surely dragging itself closer. He slid the card into the slot and pushed the cover closed.
Final Vent
Behind Rainbow Dash, Caballkhan gave a loud neigh and charged around her, heading towards the Armored Hero. As Caballkhan passed him, he leapt up and landed on its back. A pair of glowing objects fell from the sky, a large disk and a thin rod. The Hero held up his arms: the disk attached onto his left arm as a round indigo shield, four feet across, bearing the gold Horse symbol in the center and with a gold horseshoe stretched around it as the border, the tabs at the ends sticking out from the rim; the pole flew into his right hand as a jousting lance, its length covered in long indigo and gold bands.
The staggering Dispider reared as best it could as Caballkhan closed in, throwing its right legs into the air—the Armored Hero thrust the lance forward, landing its tip at the base of the Dispider’s neck and pushing it back as Caballkhan continued charging. The Dispider frantically clawed at the ground, only rising sprays of sparks as it was forced backwards at the building behind it. The Armored Hero raised the lance, lifting the Dispider off the ground, as a pulse of energy gathered at the handle and shot up it. Caballkhan stamped its front hooves down and stopped as the Hero thrust the lance forward again, the Dispider ramming its back flat into the building as the energy pulse hit it. The Dispider burst into a fiery explosion, Caballkhan rearing and flailing its hooves with a loud mechanical neigh as charred debris fragments rained down.
Caballkhan stamped down and snorted. Rainbow Dash looked on at the scene, the Armored Hero a knight atop a robotic medieval steed, blackened flaming chunks scattered across the ground around him and a clearing smoke cloud against the wall in front of him. He turned to look to her; Caballkhan took a step back from the wall.
“The Armored Hero is just a name the news came up with,” he said to her. After a stunt like that, he figured she’d earned this much. “I’m called a Kamen Rider. Kamen Rider Cavalier.”
“Uh,” she stammered, “R-rainbow Dash.” She would later claim the stuttering was because of having just witnessing pure awesomeness, but in reality she was still a bit shaken from the Dispider’s hit.
Unseen by her, however, Cavalier’s head tipped up slightly upon hearing her name. “Is that so…,” he mumbled inaudibly. He turned to look in the direction she’d been dragged here from. “We should probably get you back across the mirrors,” he said as he steered Caballkhan around that way, who started off down the path. Rainbow Dash glanced down at the sword she was leaning on before just letting it drop and following, her legs taking a few wobbly steps before fully recovering.
“So that’s what you call it?” she commented, running up alongside them.
“Don’t push your luck.”
They reached the street and continued on, but back in the courtyard, something was happening. Amidst the last of the flaming debris up against the wall, there was a flash, and a glowing ball of energy floated up from it. It hung in midair for a minute or so before slowly drifting back down. As it descended, stray dust in the air began moving towards it, followed by powdered charcoal on the ground, coalescing onto the energy ball, faster and faster. The nearest chunks of debris then began moving in its direction…
Next time, on “Kamen Rider EqG”…
“Well?” said the voice in the dark room. “Do you think you’re ready?” A single light shone onto a table. “That you have what it will take?”
In the spotlight, an object sat on the table.
“For what?” asked Rainbow Dash’s voice.
The object on the table was a light blue Advent Deck.
Let’s Ride
Also, coming soon…
A Mirror Monster with jagged, dull metallic blue armor tumbled into the alleyway. The Zenobiter sprung back to its feet, the pair of long antennae hanging over the back of its head swinging, and snarled at the figure standing near the alley’s entrance.
“Not used to being seen, are you?” said the figure. “I can help with that.” He held an object in his left hand up to the right: it was a white belt buckle with a clear circle in the middle and silver handles on each end, somewhat resembling a camera. “No one will see you again,” he said, shaking his head slightly. He slapped the buckle against his waist and a belt sprung around from the left side, attaching on the right. He held up a card in his right hand, holding it low by the sides and facing it towards the Zenobiter. “Henshin.” He flipped the card around in his hand.
The World of EqG
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KO awesome new chapter and Rainbow Dash is gonna be a Kamen Rider, can't wait to see what happens next.
Is the Mane 6 gonna become Kamen Riders?
WHERE IS IT
6799930
Where's what?
6801465
6801465 my cookies plus this is a great story cant wait for the next one
Ah great! This updated, it's like Christmas!
Can you at least give us a hint about the numbers?
6878019
(Finally someone asks.)Hmm…remember how Megan McCarthy (MLP's showrunner) would tweet out the lists of numbers…they labeled when a certain thing would occur…Welp.
I don't know what code that is and I've given up.
So here is a code for you, too!
10-21-19-20 7-5-20 1-14-15-20-8-5-18 3-8-1-16-20-5-18 18-5-1-4-25
6878372 next few chapters if u can find the time
Pun count:
[RailLiner] I'm assuming this is a video game that I've never heard of. (Den-O + Faiz)
[Caotic] Thank You! I love this show and game, I'm so glad I'm not the only person who remembers it.
[Hibiki] Oi! I was going to make a Pinki joke in my fan-fic. Can I still do that without making you angry?
action sequence:
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7234382
Dragon Knight is what got me into Kamen Rider as well.
Nope, completely my idea. Unless by pure coincidence it actually exists, in which case I claim credit anyway.
I knew I couldn't be the only one to think of "Pinki"; go right ahead.
Kamen Rider Dragon Knight is the first (and currently only) kamen rider i have ever watched