To Serve In Hell

by CoffeeMinion

Chapter 23: Fire in the Night

Rainbow Dash flew northwest, soaring high above the moonlit remnants of the Everfree. She banked slightly to catch a favorable breeze, and grunted at the drag created by the large air-chariot that she was pulling. Spotting the outskirts of Ponyville up ahead, Dash turned her head and shouted back at her passengers: “How are you guys holding up?”

“It feels wonderful to fly again,” Scootaloo said, her grin wide and infectious.

In contrast, Redheart held onto the chariot’s metal frame with a death-drip. “It’s definitely something.”

Dash grinned. “Heh, glad you’re enjoying it! Let’s have a little fun…” She dipped down, angling both herself and the chariot toward the ground. Behind her, she heard Scootaloo giggle, and Redheart give a muffled scream.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” Redheart shouted. Dash glanced at her, saw that her face had turned almost green, and decided it’d be best to level out.

“Aw, c’mon,” Scootaloo shouted. “Why not open ’er up and see how fast we can go, like you used to?”

“How ’bout we don’t!”

“Sorry kid, I don’t think the Doc’s into it. But check it out: we’re coming up on Ponyville.”

As they cleared what was left of the forest, Dash heard Scootaloo gasp. She looked back, seeing the filly’s wide-eyed expression.

“Something wrong?” Dash asked.

Redheart touched Scootaloo’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know you were really looking forward to this. But I also know it’s not an easy thing to see.”

The trio flew on in silence, and soon made landfall next to a deep fissure representing the edge of Ponyville. Dash began unhitching herself immediately, and Redheart hopped down to help her. But Scootaloo stood staring slack-jawed at the town’s shattered terrain and its blackened, empty remnants of buildings.

“Kid?” Dash asked. “Hey, do you still want to check this out?”

“This was my home,” Scootaloo said quietly. Then she pointed a shaky hoof towards a nearby ruin, whose collapsed entryway was flanked by two weathered, but still visibly striped, poles. “That’s… that was Sugarcube Corner, wasn’t it?”

Dash nodded. “Yeah. And that huge crater there used to be City Hall. And that’s what’s left of Golden Oaks Library.”

“Hospital was over there,” Redheart added, pointing.

Scootaloo began to shake. Dash and Redheart exchanged worried glances, and both stepped closer to her.

Without any warning, Scootaloo took off at a full gallop.

Dash flexed her wings to take off in pursuit, but felt painful twinges in them, probably from pulling the heavy chariot. Instead, she pulled them back against her sides, muttered a curse, and set off galloping after the filly. Redheart did the same, but her cursing was much louder.

“Scoots!” Dash shouted. “Where are you going?!”

The filly didn’t slow as she ran through the debris-choked streets. Dash’s longer legs should’ve given her a speed advantage, and Redheart had earth pony strength to propel her onward, but Scootaloo moved as if she was possessed. Sweat beaded on Dash’s brow as she struggled to keep pace, and eventually she noticed Redheart had fallen quite a bit behind.

As the chase continued, the ruins began to increase in density. Remains of taller residential buildings heralded the transition to a lower-cost neighborhood.

Dash swore again as she realized where Scootaloo was heading. “Scoots, they aren’t here!”

“I have to see it!” Scootaloo shouted, not looking back. “I have to know!”

But as Scootaloo approached the edge of the neighborhood, she skidded to a halt and collapsed onto her knees. Dash heard the soft sound of weeping as she finally closed the distance between them. Scootaloo raised a shaky hoof in the direction of one of the many ruined houses.

“I’m sorry,” Dash said quietly.

Scootaloo shook her head and continued sobbing bitterly.

Dash reached out with a wing and hugged Scootaloo. The filly recoiled from her touch at first, but then met Dash’s eyes with hers full of tears, and threw herself against Dash’s barrel.

“I don’t know for sure what happened to them,” Dash said, feeling the threat of tears as well.

“Either way, they’re gone. We’ll probably never… never know…” Scootaloo’s words became lost in weeping.

“Maybe Rarity knows somepony who can help us find out for sure,” Dash whispered. “But I get it. I’ve only been out here once or twice, and it’s… hard. It’s a lot easier not to go out. Not to think about who we lost.”

“How can you not?”

Dash turned her head toward a path that had once led to a cottage on the far outskirts of town, near what remained of the Everfree. For a moment she was wracked by memories of a smiling, beautiful, wonderfully kind friend, who’d been there for her at her lowest. Or at least, what had been her lowest at the time…

But Dash shook her head, dispelling the yellow-and-pink vision. “Because, honestly, sometimes I worry that if I stop to really think about it… of what I lost, or who I lost… I don’t know if I could go on.”

“How do you go on?” Scootaloo pulled away and looked up at Dash with glistening eyes. “How am I supposed to go on, now that…”

Dash pulled her close again. “I… I don’t know. I’m the last pony who should be giving advice about that. When the chips were down… I failed the ponies who trusted me. I decided that living was worth giving up who I am, or who I was.” She sighed. “Sometimes I think I made the wrong decision.”

Silence. Then: “I’m glad you’re still here.”

A smile worked its way across Dash’s face. “I guess… being with you here, now…” She shuddered at the thought of Scootaloo’s descent into, and ejection from, Tartarus, and pulled her a little tighter into the hug.

Redheart staggered to a halt next to them, panting. “Scootaloo… you guys don’t… oof.”

Dash turned her smile on Redheart. “I didn’t really know how to keep going on, either. But to be honest, spending time with you two has me feeling better than I’ve felt about things... in a long time.”

“What,” Redheart said, still catching her breath. “You mean… running around… dead cities… worrying about ponies… like Wind Rider?”

Dash shrugged. “I dunno. At least it’s—” A sound from nearby caught her attention. She turned and studied the line of houses near Scootaloo’s former residence.

“What is it?” Redheart asked.

Another sound brought Dash’s eyes around to focus on one structure in particular that seemed to be in a little better repair than the others. As Dash squinted and studied it longer, she could see an almost patchwork quality about its burnt, wood-sided exterior, which gave the appearance that a pony might’ve fixed some of the damage it had suffered during Ponyville’s fall.

“Hold on, kid,” Dash said, setting off toward the house.

“What’s wrong?” Redheart fell in next to her with a furrowed brow.

Dash bobbed her head in the direction of the house. “Does that look weird to you?”

Redheart gave her a frown. “Day-vision, not night-vision. What are you seeing?”

“I don’t know…”

They approached the house slowly. It was an unremarkable two-story structure like many in Ponyville, though part of the top floor had been shattered by a large fallen tree that still lay near its side. Yet somepony had clearly boarded up the gaps that this had left, and it looked like an exposed part of the building’s frame had been reinforced with metal braces.

A sudden flicker of movement at one of the windows made Dash drop into a defensive crouch. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

There was nothing but silence.

“What’s going on, Rainbow?” Redheart asked next to her, nervousness creeping into her tone.

“There’s a pony in there,” Dash said, gritting her teeth. “Go keep an eye on Scootaloo in case there’s more and they try to flank us.” With that, she leapt up into the air, circling the building a couple of times to try to see anything more. “All right, listen up in there! I don’t know who you are, but I’m a sergeant in Nightmare Moon’s army. Come out now, or I’m coming in!”

There were a number of soft sounds from the building, as though something inside was shifting around.

And then, in the span of a heartbeat, Dash felt the fur on her coat begin to prickle, spotted a sudden brightness from within the building, and acted on instinct, throwing herself into sideways roll. In doing so, she only just missed being clipped by a thick, blazing bolt of turquoise-colored magic.

“Take cover!” Dash shouted, making good on her own advice. She darted into one of the ruined tenements nearby, but soon gritted her teeth again as three more bright bolts each tore head-sized holes in the brick wall she was hiding behind.

Cursing profusely and flying back out into the air, Dash circled the building in a fast but irregular trajectory, using the time to assess a few weaker-looking spots where she might be able to crash through the exterior. Bolts continued to fly past her; sometimes above, sometimes below or in front, but never quite hitting their mark.

At last, Dash spotted a place that looked like a thin board had been put up over a rather larger hole in the siding. Dash gave a great beat of her wings and dive-bombed it without hesitation.

She didn’t have time to fully absorb what she saw after crashing through it. There might have been one pony, or several… everything happened too quickly. There were more bright bursts of turquoise light, and sudden loud crackling sounds, and then—

Silence, save for a faint metallic ticking.

Dash furrowed her brow, feeling certain that what she’d heard was a teleportation spell. She glanced about the room, seeing the expected cracked walls, overturned furniture, and overall disrepair. But as she continued looking, she saw that not everything was quite in such a state. Rows of tables along one wall were covered with an assortment of small crystals, several glass phials and tubes full of liquids, as well as all manner of half-assembled machinery. Along another wall, there were clean-looking chairs and a small table that featured a chess game, apparently abandoned in progress.

But in the center of the room was a large table with a hoof-drawn map stretched across it. Dash approached it, taking in the sight of various colored pins stuck into its surface. She recognized the outline of Canterlot mountain on one side, with a number of black pins placed inside it, along with a few yellow pins concentrated mostly where the Lower City would be, and the odd lilac pin here and there. Her eyes then traced their way down toward Ponyville’s ruins, where she saw more lilac pins. Then she glanced at Nightmare Moon’s castle, seeing one yellow pin, one lilac pin, and a large number of black pins. At last she glanced across the plains where the expeditionary force had gone, and her eyebrows climbed as she noted a thick knot of black pins surrounded by lilac ones.

The ticking distracted Dash again, and she glanced around, trying to see if it had an obvious source. One thing she noticed was a pony-sized cage of wrought iron with a hinged door that was cocked open.

“What’s going on?!” Redheart called from outside.

“I’m not sure,” Dash said, taking one last look at the map before turning and approaching the cage.

Redheart soon pushed through the hole that Dash had used to enter, and peered around. “What's that sound?”

“I don’t know… go take a look, I’ll help you in a sec.” But Dash remained focused on the cage, as she’d noticed that something appeared to be curled up on its floor. She approached it slowly, checking for movement as she bent down and entered. Seeing the thing continue to lie motionless, Dash used her forehooves to flip it over.

It was a pony’s corpse, with sallow and unnaturally gaunt features below a unicorn horn.

“What’s that?” Scootaloo asked from somewhere close behind.

Dash’s jaw worked as she tried to find an explanation. “Scoots, stay back! Doc, you gotta check this out. Whoever this was, it’s like they were… drained, or something.”

“Rainbow! Scootaloo!” Redheart bolted over to the cage, eyes wide and frantic. “I think we gotta go! Now!”

Dash glanced in the direction she was pointing: toward the workbench full of devices, and at one large cylinder in particular, bristling with wires that connected to a clock face…

“RAINBOW!”

And she reacted in an instant, grabbing Scootaloo in both forehooves as she flew out through the hole in the wall, across into the next block of ruined buildings, depositing the filly behind a heavy, overturned table. Another instant, and she was back across the street, grabbing Redheart by the barrel as she emerged from the building. Dash hauled with all her might, finally pulling Redheart free, and then pushed her from behind as Redheart tried to build up speed—

They were buffeted by a huge pressure wave. Sound and heat washed over them as the exploding building blasted both of them off their hooves, sending them tumbling end-over-end down the road.

Dash rolled to a halt by the door to a building, and felt a dull fuzziness in her brain as she gazed at the fireball blooming up into the night from the building they'd just fled.

Redheart crawled up next to her and started a prodding examination of Dash with trembling hooves and wide eyes. Moments later, Scootaloo joined her; she was weeping openly, but didn’t appear to be hurt beyond having a few minor cuts and scrapes.

“Well that didn’t go as I expected,” Dash said, though her voice sounded tinny and distant to her own ears.

“…gotta get out of here,” Redheart appeared to be saying.

Dash nodded slowly, thinking about the map she’d just seen, and venturing a guess about its meaning: the black pins were clearly the Nightmare’s forces, and the lilac ones must be whoever was drawing them away from the castle. But the yellow ones… “I don’t think I can get away from the Mistress while I still have her keys, but maybe we can get you out of here.”

“What are you saying?”

“Help me up,” Dash said, raising a hoof. “We’re not gonna have a lot of time to move before the word gets out, but there might be one place we can trust to keep you guys safe.”

Comments

[Chillean]

Viva la resistance!
I was googling ponies with turquoise magic after this chapter haha..

[CoffeeMinion]

9320957
I bet you were!

I came very, very close to getting the color wrong, though, which of course would have given a misleading clue about who or what was in there. Something I keep struggling with is that I’m partially colorblind, and a fair number of the ponies I’m using have colors that fall into ranges that I can “kind of” see but that I get wrong when I try to recall or describe them. (Fashion Plate in particular is like... I have no idea what color he is, other than what people have told me.) It hasn’t held me back as much with other stories, but it’s a lot more challenging when I’m purposely trying to give out little bits of information at a time to get people guessing.

Freakin’ Mystery tag.

9319181
Things really aren’t going her way, are they? And yet, things can always get worse...

9319255
The only thing I can reveal for sure is that she’s never gonna get to that hotel room.

[CoffeeMinion]

9321083
Well, Weird Al can definitely skew dark and/or creepy when he wants to, as evidenced by certain lyrics in Albuquerque, Jackson Park Express, and The Night Santa Went Crazy. (Probably also Christmas At Ground Zero, but to my continued shame, I still haven’t gotten around to picking up the album that’s on.)

...But what if I told you that everything you know is wrong?

[FanOfMostEverything]

Hmm. Turquoise magic and a desiccated corpse? I think Dash just struck changeling. And they'd definitely love to see the doom and gloom atmosphere lifted from Equestria.

For now, though, Dash needs to make two friends disappear for their own safety. The question becomes what she got from that map...

[terrycloth]

9320957
Obvious one is Starlight, especially after Bon Bon's equals sign.

[CoffeeMinion]

9321493
Or maybe Communism is just a red herring?

[Chillean]

9321493
I could never remember all the colors from memory haha

[ZanarNaryon]

Okay damn i take it back Rainbow can do her job