My Little Equestroid: Stompin' is Magic

by ForeverChasingRainbows

Chapter 3 - Sinkholes and Revelations

**Rainbow Dash**

Rainbow Dash was the first to wake up. She had been in the middle of a weird dream, in which she had been strangely unable to fly straight - as if her balance was continually being disrupted, keeping her from staying on the level. Then things had gone south from there, and she'd had one of her infrequent but disturbing claustrophobia nightmares again before jolting awake with a start.

Unfortunately for Rainbow, things didn't get any better when she awoke. Completely tangled in layers of cloth, she found herself unable to see anything beyond the fabric tightly pulled across her face. Already drenched in sweat from a combination of the nightmare she'd been having and the stifling heat of the enveloping folds restraining her, Rainbow Dash came perilously close to losing her cool.

"F-Fluttershy?" Rainbow cursed internally at the crack in her voice, and tried to keep her breathing in check. "Flutters, I need some help here."

Rainbow Dash heard a muffled squeak from somewhere above her head, shortly followed by Fluttershy's sleep-addled voice. "Rainbow? What time is it? Oh... oh my. Um, where are you?"

"Right here!" Rainbow struggled briefly against the material surrounding her. "I can't move." In a quieter voice, she asked, "Is anypony else out there?"

"No, it's just me."

Rainbow screwed her eyes shut and focused on keeping her breathing steady. "O-okay. I'm... I'm kinda freaking out here. Could you hurry up and get me out?"

"Just stay calm Rainbow Dash, I'll get this untangled in no time." Small sounds of exertion and movement came from above. Dash could feel the cloth closing in all around her. It was getting hard to breathe in the heat and humidity of the tangled sleeping bag. She knew hyperventilating was bad, but she just couldn't make herself slow down.

What is taking so long?

Just as Rainbow Dash was about to surrender to panic, the piece of material tangled around her head was pulled away and Fluttershy's hooves wrapped around her neck in a brief comforting hug. "There you are!" Fluttershy said, pulling back to put her head just in front of Rainbow's and holding her gaze. "Okay, come on now, breathe with me." Rainbow concentrated on her friend's face and struggled to slow her rapid breathing to match the other pegasus. After a few moments, Fluttershy went back to digging around the rest of the mass of tangled material and Rainbow Dash got her first look at what had happened to the inside of their tent.

The place was a wreck. The entire thing was tipped over at an angle, and everything had slid down to the bottom - the corner Rainbow Dash had been sleeping in. Both of the ponies' sleeping bags and blankets were wrapped up around and on top of her, and presumably Fluttershy had been on top of the whole thing as well until a minute ago. "What in the hay happened to the tent?!" Rainbow asked as the constricting fabric loosened and her forelegs popped free. With a push and a little wriggling Rainbow managed to free herself entirely, and let out a heavy breath. "Whoo, thanks Fluttershy. I'm gonna take a look outside, try and figure out what's going on."

"You're welcome. I hope everypony else is okay..." Fluttershy said as Rainbow completed a brief scan of the rearranged tent to find the zipper.

"'et's 'o fin' ou'!" Rainbow mumbled around the zipper as she pulled it up with her teeth. It was still dark out, but nevertheless her heart soared at the sight of the sky and open air outside. Claustrophobia was so not cool. She spat the little metal zip fastener out and jumped through the opening. "Come on! Whoa."

"Oh dear."

Rainbow Dash hovered just outside the opening of their yellow-striped blue Wonderbolts brand tent, Fluttershy's head poking out behind her. The formerly flat, rock-strewn area in which they had set up camp was now host to a brand new sinkhole, and their tent had fallen halfway into the opening. The other two tents - one plain, practical triangular affair containing Pinkie and Applejack, and the other a rather ostentatious white-and-gold pavilion tent hosting Rarity and Twilight - were completely untouched.

The two pegasi's naturally sharp vision and the bright moonlight made finding their way around a simple affair, and Rainbow headed straight for the earth ponies' tent. "Hey! Hey, AJ!" Rainbow hissed, tapping a hoof on the outside of the dark green material. "You awake?"

A weary groan preceded Applejack's response from inside the tent. "Go 'way, 'm asleep."

"Oh ha ha. Something weird's going on out here, could you maybe come take a look?"

Confused sleepy mumbling interspersed with half-hearted cursing made its way towards the front of the tent. A half-awake Applejack shouldered her way out through the flap, absent her hat. "'s the middle o' the darn night Dash-" As soon as her forehooves touched the ground outside the tent, Applejack's eyes flew open. The earth pony's head snapped down to her hooves, and she picked one up to examine it as if she'd trodden in something. "What the... now that just ain't right."

"You're telling me," Rainbow said, stepping aside and pointing at her own tent, "The ground tried to eat our tent."

Applejack glanced over the area around the collapsed tent. Her green eyes narrowed, and she looked aside briefly to spit on the ground. "I think we've found our problem," she said slowly. "Go wake Twi and Rarity up, I'll try and break it to Pinkie gentle. She ain't gonna like this."

Rainbow Dash paused, confused. "Why not?"

"Y'all can't feel that? In the ground?"

Fluttershy looked at the floor, then shook her head.

"Uhh, hello? Pegasus, remember?" Rainbow Dash supplied, waggling the tips of her wings briefly.

"She was born a rock farmer, Dash. Something, or somepony, has done somethin'... I can't even put words to it. Ya gotta be an earth pony to get it I guess. Felt it as soon as I stepped out onto it." Applejack glanced down again, and stepped back so all four of her hooves were inside her tent. She stopped shifting uncomfortably, but the look of distaste didn't leave her face. "Ugh, I can even tell from in here now. Anyhow, the rock here's been messed up somethin' fierce. I know we don't really see that side of 'er, but she's still a part o' the Pie family. It's makin' me feel weird just standin' on it, I don't know how Pinkie'll take it."

Rainbow Dash hopped into the air and started hovering. The ground didn't feel any different to her, but she'd stick to flying if AJ said there was something freaky going on with it. "Well, good luck with uh... whatever that's gonna involve," she said, turning to glide across the camp, "I'll go get Rarity started, it'll take her forever to get ready anyhow."

"I'll stay here and help Applejack with Pinkie Pie," Fluttershy said, directing a concerned gaze at the plain green tent. "I hope she doesn't get all depressed, it's so sad when she's not herself."

Dash probably would have gone with 'extremely creepy and weird', but she wasn't going to say that out loud. Hopefully nopony would need to argue with Pinkie via a small pile of rocks and a bag of flour this time. Rainbow found the whole random thing sort of endearing most of the time, but when Pinkie Pie wasn't in a good mood it quickly went from funny-random to just-plain-strange-random.

Reaching her destination, Rainbow Dash flared her wings and halted just off the ground. As she plopped down onto her hooves outside Rarity's enormous frou-frou tent, Rainbow's thoughts turned to Twilight. She hoped Twi was at least feeling a little better, especially as it was probably mostly her fault. She still felt bad about hitting Twilight, but at the time she couldn't think of anything else to do. All the sickly green and black glowing had been sort of a giveaway that something was going really wrong, and the panic in Twilight's eyes before they'd gone solid black - which had been super creepy - had sealed the deal. Twilight had been terrified, and Rainbow had been itching to do something, anything, rather than just sit and watch.

They had all been standing around Twilight, calling out to her, asking her what they could do. The whispered cry for help just before Rainbow saw Twilight's horn start sparking off arcs of violet-edged black lightning had been the last straw. She knew unicorn horns were sensitive when they were doing magic, and she'd been told that hitting them there would disrupt their concentration, and figured that it would still work even if Twilight wasn't entirely a unicorn any more.

Once she'd decided to act, Rainbow had done it fast. Twilight was in trouble, and she had a solution, so the faster it was done the better, right? Especially with Twilight being an alicorn now and all, Rainbow Dash had figured she'd be pretty tough - plus, Twilight had been really good at magic anyway. So, Dash had decided, she'd have to hit her pretty hard to break her concentration. Apparently, however, 'breaking their concentration' meant 'causing them agonising pain' - and being an alicorn didn't seem to help. Rainbow's heart had leapt briefly when her strike had stopped whatever the hay had been happening to Twilight, and then almost shattered in her chest when her friend had started screaming.

That moment when she realised she had intentionally hurt one of her friends, badly enough to leave them a sobbing wreck on the floor, would probably stick in Rainbow's memory for the rest of her life.

She'd expected to be yelled at. That Twilight would never want to see her again. Rainbow Dash would never stop being Twilight Sparkle's friend, but Rainbow had thought it would forever be a one-sided thing after what she'd done. It would have hurt, but she could have dealt with it. Probably. It was worth having Twilight hate her if that was what it took to keep her safe. But Twilight had thanked her, said she'd done the right thing. Rainbow didn't think she deserved it, but somehow, Twilight was still her friend.

I have the best friends ever.

The pegasus rubbed a hoof across her eyes and sniffed. "Stupid dust. Getting in my eye and stuff," she mumbled to herself. Rainbow took a second to stretch out her wings - not to stop crying, which she totally wasn't doing - and bumped a hoof against the tent's exterior.

"Twi? Rarity? You awake in there?"

**Fluttershy**

Fluttershy watched with nervous curiosity as Applejack coaxed Pinkie Pie out of their tent. Hopefully it wouldn't be too bad. Pinkie was normally so optimistic about everything, but Fluttershy couldn't help but be just a teensy little bit worried.

Pinkie, never one to do things by halves, went from poking her head out of the tent flap straight to a standing jump onto the ground outside, landing on all four hooves. The pink earth pony let out a scandalised gasp, and started rapidly prancing in place as if trying to remain standing without touching the floor.

"Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! Icky!" Pinkie stage-whispered with her eyes tightly shut. After a little more prancing and some more repetitions of 'Ew' she jumped into the air, actually pausing for a moment with all four limbs off the ground, and took a deep breath before opening her eyes and dropping back onto the rocky surface. "Blech," she said, sticking out her tongue, "it's all sticky and icky, like the time I spilled caramel on the floor, only it's crawling up my legs and there's something else under-" Pinkie Pie looked straight down at the ground between her forehooves, as if she could see straight through the rock - and as far as Fluttershy could tell, she wasn't happy with what she saw.

"I know it's bad, Pinkie," Applejack said quietly, "Rainbow's wakin' the rest of the girls up now. Pretty sure this is what we were lookin' for. Hopefully Twilight will feel up to fixin' it once we get down there."

Pinkie Pie's lip started to wobble. Fluttershy took a step closer, ducking her head to try and catch the pink pony's downcast eyes. "Are you okay Pinkie Pie?"

Pinkie's normally joyous voice was subdued and sorrowful. "Who... who would do something like this?"

Fluttershy moved up beside her friend and laid a wing across her shoulders. "Don't worry, we're going to fix everything."

"Yeah, that's why we came all this way in the first place!" Applejack added.

"Okay!" Pinkie replied, immediately back to her usual bubbly self. Fluttershy eyed Applejack warily, trying to get some sort of cue from the other earth pony. Pinkie had cheered up awfully fast.

Applejack looked a little nervous. "Uh, Pinkie, are ya..."

"Oh I'm fine, silly," Pinkie said, waving a hoof dismissively. "I mean, if I was Maud we'd probably have a problem. Well, actually two problems, because I'd have turned into Maud. Would that mean she would have turned into me too? 'Cos that would be super fun, I mean as long as it was temporary. And would we actually get to be each other, or would we just swap places?" Pinkie shrugged. "Eh, doesn't matter I guess. Hey, thanks for the hug Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy suddenly found herself on the receiving end of a crushing, but mercifully brief, return embrace from her pink friend. "I'm just-" she gasped in a breath as Pinkie released her "-just glad you're okay."

Then, Pinkie Pie caught sight of Rainbow and Fluttershy's tent. "Holy guacamole, your tent! Wait, where's Rainbow Dash? Is she okay?!" Glancing around frantically, Pinkie spotted Rainbow over by the third tent. "Oh, there she is," she said, before rearing up to wave her hooves and bellow, "HEY RAINBOW DASH!"

Rainbow flinched and span round, then returned the wave a little uncertainly before turning back to the large tent. Fluttershy and Applejack cringed back, flattening their ears against Pinkie's shouting. "Well," Applejack commented, "there goes wakin' 'em up gentle I guess. Hey, Fluttershy, did ya bring any of that herbal tea stuff Twilight likes? I s'pose it's a bit of a mess in yer tent, but she'd prob'ly appreciate it right about now."

"Ooh, that's a great idea!" Pinkie said, sticking her head back into her tent. "Now where did I leave those breakfast muffins..." she continued, disappearing back inside entirely.

Fluttershy glanced back towards the capsized tent, biting her lower lip nervously. "I did bring some, but I don't know if I'll be able to find it too quickly in all the mess. Could you maybe help me look, if you're not doing anything else?"

"Sure," Applejack said, "just let me grab this." She quickly ducked into the tent after Pinkie, before re-emerging with her hat gripped in her mouth. Then, with a practised flick, she tossed it up into the air and onto her head. "Much better. Don't hardly feel decent without it," She confided, tapping the hat down firmly over her mane and smiling. "Let's get 'er done."

**Stampede**

The entity known as Stampede was not fond of his plans being disturbed.

"TEX!" Stampede vented his anger in an enraged bellow, the cry echoing around the rocky chamber in which he resided.

The towering saurian apparition was quite literally smoking in rage. Although his magical manifestation resembled his former purely physical body, complete with the mechanical exoskeleton he had been wearing at the moment of his ascension, Stampede's not-quite-material form had somewhat unconventional means of expressing his emotional state. Measuring around thirty feet from head to tail, his green-scaled form was superficially similar to popular depictions of the large predatory dinosaurs of Earth's prehistory. His lower half was, however, far less substantial than his upper body. It was almost permanently wreathed in greenish-black smoke, and not quite solid enough to actually support his weight. As he had partially transcended the material however, this did not prove much of an obstacle to Stampede. He simply levitated or teleported himself anywhere he needed to go.

The upper section of the Broncosaur's skull had been replaced by a heavy metal cap, complete with menacing forward-pointed horns. The headpiece was connected to a flimsy-looking exoskeleton stretching along his spine and forelimbs, all the way to his clawed digits. In life the machine had helped him move his disease-ravaged body; now it served as a reminder of the indignity he had suffered - and conquered. A long, scaled snout ended in a maw that continually dripped with yellow-green ectoplasm, an outward sign of the power he had attained along with the glowing pits that had replaced his eyes. Large flat teeth bore witness to his species' status as herbivores - not that this fact had prevented Stampede in particular from putting their powerful crushing force to work on other creatures while he was still alive.

Now he was the only legacy of the Broncosaurs, having unwittingly sacrificed the rest of his race - and all but two of another people - in the process of his ascension. The price had been unexpected, but not unwelcome to the narcissistic Stampede. He had sacrificed nothing but a part of his attachment to the physical, and gained unfathomable power as a consequence. The fact that thousands of others had died in the process was of little importance to him.

The only annoyance was that the power had not quite been enough. Hounded to the desert backwater of New Texas by one of the other survivors of his transcendence, Stampede had found himself checked and confined to a largely unpopulated world by Shaman's power. However, the greed of two men had both given Stampede his first servant and spread the word of the planet's rich Kerium deposits to the wider galaxy - sparking a Kerium Rush that brought both prospectors and outlaws alike to New Texas. Converting the worst of the new arrivals into his servants had achieved only limited success, especially since the arrival of the interfering Shaman's protege BraveStarr, but Stampede's latest plan was sure to work - if it wasn't for setbacks like the one he had just suffered.

A cloud of purple smoke rushed into the cavern and halted before the central crater from which Stampede's upper body emerged. After a moment, the cloud condensed into a humanoid form, cowering a little before the obviously enraged Broncosaur.

Tex Hex was a withered shell of the man he had once been. Killed by his own greed in the midst of an act of treachery, he had been resurrected and twisted by Stampede's dark magic into the sorcerous scourge of the New Texas frontier. The most wanted outlaw on the planet, Tex led the Carrion Bunch in enforcing Stampede's will on New Texas. Purple skin stretched tight across his bones, giving him an unsettling skeletal appearance. The black pupils of his otherwise entirely scarlet eyes danced nervously around the walls and floor as Tex searched for some way to deflect his master's wrath, wringing his black Stetson in his crabbed, clawed hands. Clothed in a dark green shirt and crossed black bandoliers, and dark pants beneath pale leather riding chaps, Tex was usually the very picture of a frontier outlaw - when he wasn't cringing in terror of Stampede, that is.

"Y-yes boss?" Tex stammered.

"Take your gang of bumbling incompetents to our newest portal site. Quietly." Stampede growled softly, lowering his head to stare directly at Tex. "The spirits of the Celestial realm will doubtless inform that accursed Shaman of their plight, and I will not have him or his lackeys meddling in my affairs. Not when I am so close."

"But I thought ya said they'd never find out what was goin' on?" Tex blurted thoughtlessly, before cowering again.

Choosing to ignore Tex's impertinence, Stampede replied "Somehow the youngest princess managed to escape my influence. Months of searching and preparation wasted. But it does not matter, I have come too far to be stopped now. I shall simply need to adopt a... less subtle approach. One way or another, she will help me - and the rift will be made stable enough for me to cross. The abundant magic of the Celestial realm will make me unstoppable, and I will at last be free of this infernal prison! Now go," Stampede declared, raising himself back to his full height, "and do not fail me, Tex. I grow tired of your incessant bungling."

Tex bristled. "If it weren't for that blasted Marshal BraveStarr-"

"BraveStarr, BraveStarr, BraveStarr," Stampede repeated derisively, "That's always your pathetic excuse. One mortal man and his ridiculous robot horse! The powers I gave you are more than a match for him. Maybe I should find a more suitable-"

"No, no, that... won't be necessary," Tex said hurriedly, holding his palms out in a pacifying gesture. "I'll take care of BraveStarr myself."

"See that you do. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind."

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