Silent Ponyville: Duet Of Sorrow

by KillerSteel

Chapter 7: Meeting Memories

“This place has definitely seen better days…” Rainbow remarks, slowly moving towards the counter.

“Better days? This place should be a pile of rubble by now.” Sehn says, looking around.

“The aging isn’t that bad.” Rainbow replies, putting a hoof against the counter, and she pushes a bit. The counter easily gives way, her leg now stuck half way through the counter.

“’Ain’t that bad’ my spiky rear.” Sehn chuckles.

“Be quiet. See anything around here?” Rainbow asks with a roll of the eyes.

“Not a lot of light, and the window is too dusty to let in whatever light is coming down from above the fog cover…something about this place is bothering me though.” Both Rainbow and Sehn look at the bag, expecting a buzz, but the bag remains silent. “You’re being paranoid.” Rainbow remarks, looking at Sehn with a raised eyebrow, and he shrugs. “Paranoia is what’s kept me alive.”

The pair begin moving around in the bakery, looking for anything that’s useful. Rainbow heads into the kitchen while Sehn goes upstairs, his boots banging rather hard on the aged steps. One of them splits under a hard step, and his leg nearly falls through.

“Be careful!” Rainbow shouts, leaning out from the kitchen.

“Right, right, building in a condemned state, being careful now.” Sehn shouts back, carefully walking up the rest of the steps. Rainbow leans back into the kitchen, looking around. The room, much like the front desk and surrounding area, looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in 50 years. The stove has rusted to a barely recognizable husk, and the counters are all covered in a thick layer of dust. Rainbow looks up, the sounds of Sehn’s steps clear in the quiet room. “Still stomping around…” She sighs, lowering her sight to the room.

“The Cakes would flip if they ever saw their kitchen like this…Pinkie wouldn’t be any better off, I’d guess.” Rainbow mutters to herself, walking into the center of the kitchen. All the cupboards seem to have padlocks and chains on them, wrapped around the handles to keep them shut. A large cupboard doesn’t share the same lock though, and looks brand new compared to the room. “Well…at least one thing survived all this.” Rainbow says to herself as she moves over to the cupboard. A sound stops her dead in her tracks, and she begins to shiver.

A low buzz, muffled by the bag but definitely audible. Rainbow turns her gaze to the door she came through, seeing nothing, and looks out into the fog. No shadows beyond the window, though it’s not comforting with the fog being so thick. She takes a deep breath and turns back to the cupboard, taking another few steps forward. The buzz becomes louder.

“So it’s coming from that…” She mutters to herself, and slowly lowers herself into a jumping stance, drawing the knife from its holster. She creeps towards the cupboard, inch after inch, and slowly reaches up to the handle, ready for whatever may burst out. She takes the handle in a hoof, and slowly opens the door, focused on whatever’s inside.

She sees something move inside the cupboard, and it immediately moves out in a shadowy blur at her eyes. She rears back and tries to shriek, but the shadow is too fast. She feels something grab her face, and blacks out.

“Where…am I?” The voice echoes in the space. Nothing but darkness surrounds the voice, no vision, no smell, no hearing beyond her words. “What happened?” The voice questions again, pleading to the void for an answer.

“Did…I die?” The voice asks itself, trying to move a body that it used to belong to. Something responds, and it moves up in front of the darkness, a white leg against the black of the surroundings. The vision follows the leg down to a body, to wings, to three other legs. The body moves by itself, and the leg in front of her eyes moves to the side, wiping away the darkness to reveal a landscape.

The next thing the voice notices is heat, unbearable heat, beating down on her back. It sears her skin and burns all the way through to her chest. Sweat rolls down her forehead as she looks down, seeing a small town. The image is blurred from a mirage hovering over the buildings. “Where is this?” The voice echoes once again, and it commands the body to lower itself closer to the town. The wings don’t respond, still beating with a rhythm that keeps the body afloat.

“Bad time for you not to listen to me, wings.” The voice scolds, focusing on lowering the body. The body does not respond, but moves on its own instead. Thoughts begin to roll through the mind disconnected from the voice, and it quickly realizes that things aren’t right. Thoughts of the town, of the people, of how they wronged the thinker and how they should pay. A plan moves through the mind, and the voice becomes panicked.

“What the?!” Rainbow screams out inside her own head, unable to control the body. Something else was in control here, and the plan the body was coming up with terrified her. “No, you can’t do that! This stunt is too dangerous!” She cries out, the mind ignoring her. She suddenly feels a jerk as the body ascends, her prison shooting into the sky. Rainbow fights her warden, the mind next to her, for control over the body, panic spreading through her, trying to stop the mind from performing the Sonic Rainboom. She doesn’t know why, but something just seems wrong about how it’s executed.

The mind ignores her, and the body suddenly comes to a halt. The eyes look down on the town, and a smile grows across the face. It quickly turns into a mad smile, and the eyes widen, the adrenaline pumping through the system. She’d been planning this for a long time now, a show for all to see. The explosion would be seen, felt, heard for miles, and her place at the top of the world of fliers would be solidified. She would be respected, exalted, praised for this act, and all that had to be done…was this.

The voice screams at the back of the mind of her prison as the body starts falling, then flying towards the ground. The familiar cone of air grows in front of her as she accelerates, faster, faster, soon reaching the speed needed for the Sonic Rainboom, but the cone retains itself. The Pegasus holds the air in front of her, building up a thicker and thicker cone, sharpening it into a spear of atmospheric pressure, as she flies towards the ground. 300 meters, 200 meters, 100 meters, her speed well beyond what’s required for the stunt.

Rainbow Dash lets out a loud scream of pure terror as the body meets the ground, and time seems to stop…the hooves touch the ground and push forward, the head moves up and away from the ground, the cone hits the ground under the Pegasus, and she starts running. Sound no longer exists, the world is a blur, and she runs past buildings, shocked faces, everything is frozen in a still image. She runs past a familiar hedgehog, and blacks out once more.

Rainbow’s eyes snap open and she lets out a loud shriek into Sehn’s face, causing him to leap up into the air and slam his head against the low ceiling. He hits the ground with a thud and a groan of pain, as Rainbow rolls on the ground, screaming her head off.

“WHAT THE HELL!?” Sehn shouts, holding the back of his head with one hand and his right ear with the other, looking up at the crazed Rainbow. He gets up and grabs her by the shoulders, and she curls up into a ball, pupils shrunk to a pin prick, shaking uncontrollably, and crying.

“Calm down kid!” Sehn’s voice enters Rainbow’s hearing as a muffled blur, her vision clouded by her tears. She could’ve sworn she died, and then to witness that? What exactly scared her so much? All those faces, the buildings, the speed…she lived for that kind of moment, she’d always wanted it to happen. Eyes filled with shock and surprise, the wind around her incapable of making a sound, the thud of her hooves the only shock the body felt while flying along at such an incredible speed. She LIVED for that…so why did it scare her so much?

“AMANDA!” The shout is quickly followed by a slap across the face from Sehn, snapping Rainbow out of her terrified state, and she quickly grabs her cheek and groans. “What was that for?!” She shouts.

“You were in hysteria, kid. At least now you can think straight. What happened? I was upstairs and I heard a shout, then when I came down here and checked on you, you screamed at me like I was the Devil!” Sehn says, exasperated, standing up. Rainbow rolls onto her belly, holding her forehead.

“I-I don’t know WHAT happened…just…something came to me, and it scared the life out of me.”

“What was it? You’re the bravest Equestrian I know; nothing short of a natural disaster could shake you.”

“I…I…I can’t explain it. I was there but…but not in control, like I was stuck in my own head and…and something else was there, controlling me and there was this void and a city and all these people and I started falling and going faster and faster and faster and I was freaking out because it all bothered me and!” Rainbow stops her rant to take a deep breath, panting, and she flops down flat onto the ground. A wave of exhaustion hits her, and she suddenly feels like she just flew from one end of Equestria to the other.

“Hey, you alright kid?” Rainbow looks over, puffing, and Sehn kneels down next to her.

“I’m…I’m fine…just tired…” she whispers, looking over at the cupboard next to her. The doors are open, revealing a small room beyond it. The walls, ceiling and floor are smooth concrete, like a prison cell, and a single bed with an end table can be seen off to the left. Hanging above the bed is a picture, but Rainbow is too exhausted to lift her head high enough to see.

“I need a break…” she weakly mutters, and Sehn takes a seat in front of her.

“Fine, kid. We seem to be safe for the moment, nothing else in the house…”, he seems to furrow his brow while saying ‘nothing else’, “so we can rest for the moment. Walkie talkie isn’t going off, right?”

“…It isn’t…” Rainbow replies. She closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep, feeling a pat on her head as the bliss of rest consumes her.

Rainbow comes to, the first sound being snores from in front of her. She looks up, seeing Sehn dozed off, not having moved from his spot with her. She gets to her feet, looking at him. His rugged appearance seems peaceful as he sleeps, and Rainbow smiles at him.

“So even persistent guys like you get tired, eh?” She chuckles, and turns to the cabinet near to her left. Looking inside, the room hasn’t changed much, but being able to look over the foot of the cabinet reveals the flooring. On it lies a note and some military fatigues, too small to fit on Sehn. Rainbow walks into the cabinet, the front of it seeming to be a doorway into a completely different space. She moves to the center of the room and looks behind her, seeing the double doorway back into the kitchen, Sehn’s elbow slowly moving up and down as he sleeps beside the door.

“...Why is this place here…and why would this room feel familiar to me? I’d never put myself in a place like this.” She looks around the room, brow furrowed. Looking over at the bed, a simple sheet lies on the rather thin mattress with a design on it. Rainbow moves over to it, seeing the design is a rainbow colored lightning bolt striking down from a cloud. She blinks a few times at it, then recoils in pain, holding her forehead, feeling something clawing forth from her subconscious. “Ow! What?” She says, grunting in pain while backing away from the bed, and steps on the fatigues, nearly tripping. “Gah!” She shouts, stumbling a bit before throwing herself into flight to get her balance back. She looks down at the fatigues, angry.

“Even the CLOTHES here are trying to hurt me! Jeeze!” She lands next to the fatigues, growling at them as if they were a threat. “I’m watching you…” she snarls at the clothing, her eyes squinted. Blinking a few times after registering that the clothes are, in fact, not trying to kill her, she sits down and looks at them for a bit.

“Bit small for his body…hm.” She thinks, picking up the shirt off the ground. It seems to be designed especially for an Equestrian, but carries a design and insignia unlike the Royal Guard. She takes her knife holster off, noticing the knife was put back in, along with her saddle bag, and puts the shirt on, checking it out. “Not half bad…pretty comfy too.” She mumbles to herself, rubbing the clothing down to get all the wrinkles out. The clothing seems alien, yet familiar to her, even though she’s never worn clothing like this before.

She looks on the left chest, above the pocket, noticing a pin on it shaped like a lightning bolt. Raising an eyebrow at it, she proceeds to put on the hat that came with the uniform, along with the knife holster and her bag. It all seems too familiar to her as she sits there, half-expecting someone to appear in the doorway and give her a lecture of some kind. She sits straighter than usual, still as a statue. The room begins to bend and deform, and the kitchen fades from the door.

The cabinet’s central bar disappears, and the two openings merge into one, the green concrete taking on a grey coloring. A shadow appears in the doorway, and it walks into the room, looking around.

“Private.” It says in a deep voice, looking down at her.

“Captain, sir.” Rainbow replies, saluting. It feels like the right thing to do…

“Your room appears to be in order. You’re to report to the border for patrols at o’ nine hundred hours. Don’t be late.” It says, venom present in the voice.

“Yes, sir. Tower 6?” Rainbow asks, the salute still held up, but her brow is furrowing slightly. She feels pain coming from her side, a burn.

“Yes. Get prepared; it’s currently o’ eight hundred thirty.” The shadow says, gaining form as it looks down at its wrist. The body takes on a form similar to Sehn, but slightly taller, and with red spikes with blue stripes along the top, instead of pure silver. His eyes are a piercing light blue, and his fatigues are clean pressed camos. The beret on his head has three triangular stripes in a tower design, with a star below them.

“You’ll be on duty with him again.” It says, finally turning away, the eyes no longer digging into Rainbow’s forehead. She sighs slightly, muttering under her breath “Ass…”, and the Hemoran stops.

“Do you have something to say to me, Private Dash?” He says, not turning around.

“Not much beyond what’s already been said, sir.”

“Be careful with your words then. Just because he supports you, does not mean the rest of us will be as kind…and Mithryl can pick up on even the slightest hate.” He turns his head, his iris now changed to a deep green, his pupil a slit. “Watch yourself.”

Rainbow moves back slightly, her anger being replaced by fear for the Hemoran in front of her. Why was she so scared? She’s seen costumes scarier than him being worn by Twilight of all ponies! Yet those eyes seemed to dig into the back of her mind, and she could feel herself burn, like she was sitting in an open fire.

“Y-yes sir!” Rainbow stutters, snapping a quick salute. The hedgehog’s mood doesn’t seem to change, and he turns back to the door and heads out. The room begins to bend and melt as it returns to normal, the grey leaving the room as color comes back. She looks at the re-built cabinet doorway, and spots Sehn looking in at her, confusion on his face.

“What’re you doing?” He asks.

“Huh?” Rainbow asks, looking at herself, lowering the salute. “What do you mean ‘what’re you doing?’”

“I mean why are you saluting and talking to air, kid?” He replies, raising an eyebrow.

“…Habit?” Rainbow says back with a bit of thought. Sehn raises his eyebrows, then shrugs and gets up. He stretches out and yawns, scratching his stomach over his shirt. He looks into the cabinet and reaches in, grabbing Rainbow by the leg, and he pulls her out of the cabinet.

“Woah!” She shouts as she comes out of the cabinet. There was a good 20 feet between her and Sehn, and she looks back at the cabinet.

It’s just a regular cabinet. Barely enough room in there to fit Rainbow. A picture hangs in the back of the cabinet behind the left door, an old photo of her and Sehn standing in a desert. They’re both smiling for the camera like old friends.

“That photo looks ancient…” Sehn says, Rainbow looking up at him. He looks reminiscent, thinking back to a past time. He half closes his eyes and smiles. “Good times, even with all that happened then…”

A crash in the other room breaks both their gazes from the photo, and they spin around. The walkie talkie begins buzzing louder than ever. Whatever was in the other room, it was a threat, and it was very angry. Rainbow draws her knife, seeing the fatigues still on her, now feeling the cap on her head, and she stares out the doorway. She looks to her side to see Sehn with a fighting stance up, fists raised, and returns her gaze to the doorway.

The room beyond has fallen into total darkness, and two yellow eyes stare at them from it. Something echoes within their minds, a voice not unlike Rainbow’s, but dark and foreboding.

“So, this is the great duo, is it?” The voice echoes, followed by a giggle. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

“You hear that?” Sehn asks, and Rainbow nods. “She sounds like you…” He mutters, and stares at the two eyes beyond the frame of the door.

“What’s with the acidic stares, you two? Don’t like company? In a city this dead, I thought you’d be begging for some action!” The voice echoes out, louder than before.

“As if we’d want anything from some random voice in our heads!” Sehn growls.

“Oh please, I know you’ve both been so bored with the usual monster here and there! I thought I’d come visit, help make things a little more exciting!” The voice says, giggling again.

“As if excitement is something we really need right now…” Rainbow says through her knife, lowering herself into a leaping stance, ready for whatever’s beyond the door frame.

“Oh but believe me, it’s what makes life what it is! I know you enjoyed what you saw before, Rainbow Dash!” The voice exclaims, the eyes moving into a cheery look as the voice giggles again.

“What’re you talking about?!” Rainbow shouts through the knife.

“Why, the stunt you saw, of course! Didn’t you feel the adrenaline?! It was amazing!” The voice exclaims, sounding high off the ecstasy of performing the stunt.

“No it wasn’t, it was terrifying!” Rainbow shouts back, “All those people…that town, what happened to them!?”

“Oho, my dear, you’ll find out in due time…but for now, I think I deserve a little fun of my own.” The voice falls low and the eyes glow red, as the darkness begins spreading like a virus across the room, covering the walls in large tendrils. A siren blares in the distance, piercing every obstacle on its way to Rainbow’s and Sehn’s ears, and they’re both dumbstruck by the scene before them.

The room has fallen into complete darkness, the tendrils consuming whatever light they can, as if it were some life-giving nourishment. A scent invades the area, the smell of rot, of death. Rainbow puts her hoof up to her nose to try and stop the smell from crushing her senses, when she feels something wet splat against her face with her hoof. She squints at the bottom of it, barely able to see what’s on it.

Light slowly returns to the room, as a torch hanging from the ceiling by the chain progressively burns brighter. The light brightens the room enough to see that the bottom of Rainbow’s hoof is covered in red, and she jumps back with a screech, wiping the red off her muzzle. She looks around herself, feeling something moving below her, and she looks down and freezes.

The entire room has been covered in a moving, living flesh skin, some holes in the flesh revealing iron fencing, thick and rusty. The walls and ceiling match this motif, and the doorway has disappeared from sight. “Oh no…not here…not again…!” Rainbow begins to panic, backing up and looking around.

“Ohhhh, what’s wrong, dear? Afraid of the dark?” A voice echoes in the room, sending shivers down Rainbow’s spine. She looks around, chomping down slightly to feel if the knife is still there, and sighs slightly in relief as her teeth bite into cold metal. She looks down, confirming the combat knife is still there. Something bumps into her side and she immediately jumps away, using her wings to provide her jump with some extra strength. She looks around, trying to find what bumped her, but all she can see is more flesh and more iron fencing.

“Where are you!?” Rainbow shouts through the knife, looking around. “What’d you do to Sehn?!”

“Sehn? Ohhh, you mean the Hemoron! Don’t worry, he’s in capable hands…hmhmhmhm…” The voice giggles once again, matching Rainbow’s voice to a note.

“Where is he!” Rainbow shouts out.

“You don’t need to worry about that…” The voice speaks to Rainbow again, right beside her. Her eyes widen, and she slowly looks to her side, and fear settles back into her mind.

It’s like staring into a mirror…her eye meets her eye, she looks down to the muzzle and mouth and can only see herself. She looks back up to the eye, the rose-colored iris still present. Looking over the body, the same fatigues are worn, but there are two differences. The voice’s wings seem to be bigger, stronger than Rainbow’s…and the cap on her head isn’t a cap, but a beret with four stripes and a star.

“Who…are you?” Rainbow asks, trying to move away. Her twin simply smiles, half closing her eyes in a look of longing.

“Like I said…you don’t have to worry about that.” She whispers to Rainbow, only unnerving her more. She moves away slightly from the twin, and walks around to her front, readying her knife. “You want to fight? Are you certain that’s smart?”

“You’re going to tell me where Sehn is, now.” Rainbow growls through the knife, her eyes full of rage.

“Oh, am I? Now I can’t be too certain about that. I’ve no incentive to tell you where he is, you see…” The twin smiles, looking at her hoof, and scuffing the flesh, kicking some blood away. “Making demands like this when you haven’t even crossed swords with your opponent? Silly child.” She chuckles, looking back up at Rainbow.

“I never make a demand without something to back it up.” Rainbow replies, smirking.

“Well, what do we have here? A brave one, are you? Well, by all means, force me to tell you where your precious Hemoron is…” The twin smiles, moving her hoof with a motion saying ‘Bring it.’

Rainbow charges at the doppelganger, moving the knife with a skill she could only wish for. The blade sails gracefully through the air, aimed straight for the neck of her opponent. With the edge just inches away, the doppelganger simply moves to the left, the blade missing completely. With a swift movement, she moves herself into a lowered stance, and kicks out with a single back leg, smashing Rainbow in the side.

Blood hits the handle of the knife as Rainbow flies off from the kick, slamming into the wall with a soft thud, blood and bits of flesh flying away from the impact. She falls to the ground, trying to get her breath back, and feels her side. She goes from winded to shocked as she feels a dent in her side from the kick.

“One kick and you’re down already? I could’ve sworn you were tougher than this.” The twin exclaims, slowly walking towards Rainbow. “Don’t disappoint me now, child…not after all this time. I want to savour this…”

“Crazy…mare…” Rainbow grunts out, getting groggily to her feet, shaking. The impact must’ve done more damage than she thought, as she feels something moving in her chest, and a sharp pain shoots to her brain, causing her to chomp down on the knife and shut her eyes. The kick definitely broke a rib, maybe two. She growls in pain, and slowly opens her eye to meet the eye of her twin.

“…Hm, your suitors are right…you do have beautiful eyes.” The twin says, staring at her with a sleepy look. “It will be sad to see the light fade from them…when you die.” She says with a matter-of-fact tone before kicking off the ground and spinning on her right foreleg, driving a kick right into Rainbow’s leg. The sweep picks her up off the ground as another kick comes racing in, nailing her in the rear and throwing her off towards the wall. Each blow has incredible strength behind it, enough power to shatter boulders.

Rainbow flips in the air and slams into the wall on her uninjured side, though it’s hard enough to knock something in her skeleton out of alignment, and she falls to the ground. Tears begin to roll as the pain turns into an inferno in her chest, and she looks at her attacker with anger. “Who…are you…? Why do…you look like me?” Rainbow says through pained gasps, holding her side where she was kicked. She slowly pushes herself up onto her hooves, and the twin stops her approach.

“You know, I feel rather insulted that you don’t know me. I thought this get up would be notice enough, but apparently you’re too stupid to get the hint…hmph, no matter. I came here to have some fun, it’s too early to kill you still.” The twin says with a pompous tone, “Oh well, we’ll run into each other again, I’m sure. Your friend should be coming back soon as well. Be a dear and wait for your oh-so-precious boyfriend.” She says, ending her sentence with a giggle. She backs away into the darkness, the giggle becoming a chuckle, then a near-psychotic laugh. The darkness begins to fade, tendrils reaching down from the ceiling, down the chain and severing the lamp from the ceiling, moving out from the center of the ceiling quickly to devour all the darkness and flesh. Rainbow looks on, feeling too much pain to be scared, and she closes her eyes, thinking this may be the end.

As the tendrils reach towards Rainbow, one grabs her by the leg as the lantern goes out, cloaking the world in shadow…