Silent Ponyville: Duet Of Sorrow

by KillerSteel

Chapter 8: The First Test

“Hey, kid!” A shout echoes out from the void, and Rainbow slowly comes around. Heat beats down on her from the sky, and she looks upwards. The darkness is gone, replaced with a bright blue sky, with the sun hanging overhead. Footsteps crunching on sand become louder, and a shadow looks down at her from above.

“Taking a nap there, Private?” It asks, holding down a hand for her. She puts her hoof in it, and the shadow pulls her up into a standing position. She shakes her head, sand flying off her coat and mane. Looking around reveals nothing more than sand, bedrock, and a massive 60 foot tall fence next to the pair, an even taller guard tower breaking the fence into two sections.

“Huh?” Rainbow says in a daze, rubbing her forehead.

“Whadya mean ‘huh’? You passed out in the middle of patrol. Was worried you got a stroke or something.” The shadow replies, the voice sounding very familiar.

“I did?” Rainbow asks, blinking a few times before the shadowy blur sharpens into a form.

“Yeah, you did. Something wrong with you today?” The form asks.

“N-nothing’s wrong…just a one-time thing, sir.” Rainbow says, rubbing her eyes. The form before her finally sharpens into the body of a silver hedgehog, wearing military fatigues and a beret with a single triangular stripe with a star below it. He puts his hands on his hips and tilts his head, sighing.

“What am I gonna do with you, Amanda?” It says, exasperated. “We’re supposed to be rounding the border today, and we’ve barely gone an eighth of the way. You falling behind on your training?”

“Of course not, like I said, it’s a one-time thing, sir.” Rainbow replies, finally feeling awake. She looks around at her surroundings again, confused. Wasn’t she just in a room made of iron fencing? Where was she now? “If you don’t mind me asking…where are we right now?”

The hedgehog just widens his eyes, raising an eyebrow and tilts his head to the side. “Ok, something is DEFINITELY wrong with you. You’re in the Mira Desert, Hemoran territory! For Heaven’s sake, we just walked by Metropolis!”

“R-right, sorry…something’s off about me today. We should get back to the patrol, shouldn’t we? Tyrus has been having a bad week, right?” Rainbow says, adjusting the knife on her arm so it fits better before standing and walking along the fence beside her.

“Don’t I know it. He’s not making sense anymore, kid, just blabbering on and on about how the Corporals in his unit are all slacking off, scheming behind his back, even their Sergeant being in on it…he’s gotten paranoid.” Sehn replies, putting his hands behind his head, walking along side Rainbow. The click-clack of the sword on his back mimics the rhythm of the crunch of sand under their feet as they walk.

“You sure he isn’t wrong? The Corporals have been acting kind of weird lately. They’ve gotten a whole lot more aggressive.” Rainbow says, looking up at the Lieutenant.

“He’s freaking out over nothing. And whadya mean more aggressive? Ever since that day three months ago, everyone on base has hated and avoided you like some deadly plague.”

“Except you.”

“And I’m still not sure why I don’t hate you. I hate everyone around here.” Sehn replies with a sigh, looking off to his right at the big sore thumb in the middle of the desert simply called Headquarters. He stops as a flame grows on his chest, which quickly expands into a circle as a small body pops out, covered in a tar-like substance. The tar quickly burns away to reveal a small, purple dragon.

“You like me, don’t you?” Loki asks, turning around, putting her hands behind her back and doing the best puppy eyes she can manage.

“You are the bane of my existence every day, Loki. Why’re you out here, anyway? I thought you hated the desert.” Sehn says with a grimace, obviously not wanting this extra annoyance tacked onto his patrol.

“I wanted to hang out with Dashie!” Loki replies happily, jumping up onto Sehn’s head, lying on her belly. “She’s cool, unlike you and the rest of the boring guys back at base.”

“Including your brother?” Sehn asks.

“Yeah! He’s the worst! All he does is sleep all day, and Tyrus doesn’t even teach him proper manners like actually WAKING UP when a lady’s talking to him!” Loki shouts into Sehn’s face, her head hanging down in front of Sehn’s eyes.

“I’m three inches away from you, kid, do you really have to shout?” Sehn replies, eyes half closed.

“Yes I do!” Loki shouts back in answer. Sehn grimaces, looking off to the right again. “Anyway, have any stories to share today, Dashie? I wanna hear about your time in Cloudsdale again!”

“Oho, you do, eh? Which one do you wanna hear today?” Rainbow replies with a smile, the one bright light in her day finally coming out to play.

“I wanna hear about your dad today!” Loki replies with a big smile. Rainbow raises her eyebrows, looking off to the side in thought.

“Huh…I never talk much about my dad, do I? What’s there to say about him…?” Rainbow looks down at the ground, going through her memories. She’d always had some awesome story ready for Loki whenever she came out for patrol, but it was always about her days in school about showing up bullies or breaking some local speed record. Why suddenly ask about her family, especially her father? Worse yet, why did all this seem so familiar to Rainbow?

“Well…for one thing, he’s a Captain in the Princess’ Royal Guard, and leader of his own Pegasus squadron. He’s never around home much, leaving me and Mom alone most of the day, but he sometimes takes me out to practice with him. He’s a great guy, but really cold and calculating unless he’s around Mom, and he’s one of the best fliers I know besides the Wonderbolts. I bet he’d give them a run for their money in a race.” Rainbow exclaims with a big smile, feeling pride for her father. It’s true she’d never thought much about her father, but now things just seemed to be flowing in. Captain Simon Dash, leader of the Thunderstrike Pegasus unit, Special Forces, two commendations for valor on the battlefield, though she never heard about the fights he went through to get them.

He was always out doing practice runs with his unit, sometimes taking his daughter out to watch and learn. Didn’t he want Rainbow to join the Guard? And why the comment about the Wonderbolts? They were Rainbow’s heroes, no one could ever top them in a race.

“He sounds awesome! Wish I had a brother like that, since my dad is already the best one I could ever have!” Loki says gleefully, a big grin on her face.

“King Absinthe scares the crap out of me…I’ve got no idea what you see in him. Those eyes being there just helps the General be even creepier…” Sehn replies, shivering, Rainbow sharing in the fear. General? King Absinthe? These things sounded familiar but so far off. The world begins to blur slightly, and Rainbow puts a hoof to her head, sitting down. Sehn walks a few steps in front of her before turning around, raising an eyebrow.

“You alright, kid?” He asks, the voice becoming muffled. The world blurs and melts around Rainbow, as her vision tunnels, and her breathing quickens.

“I…I don’t think…so…” She replies before falling over and blacking out. The last thing she hears is a screech from Loki, and a pain in her heart for scaring the little dragon.

“Ha!” Rainbow gasps, her eyes snapping open to take in the scene around her. She’s back in that room, the sound of dripping water, the smell of rot…the moving flesh under her. She tries to get up before hearing a crunch in her side and an extremely painful burning sensation, and she collapses, the pain growing worse from the impact.

“Ahhh! How’d…?!” She screams into the darkness, the memories slowly sinking in. That fight with the mare that looked just like her, how she so easily smashed her rib cage and threw her around like a ragdoll, that crazed laugh…though the room remains silent, besides the dripping water. The walkie talkie is quiet, nothing no presence that is dangerous. Rainbow leans her head up, gritting her teeth to bear the pain as she tries to see.

Light from the single lantern in the middle of the room displays the whole room, a simple box of flesh and iron fencing, nothing but a black void beyond the walls, ceiling and floor. She slowly gets to her hooves, careful not to twist anything out of place, and takes a deep breath. Looking over herself, she notes the damage to her hind legs and back from that kick and subsequent impact with the wall, but what she sees on her side terrifies her.

A literal dent has been left behind from the first kick she suffered, swelling around the wound clearly shown. “Oh…that’s…just great…” Rainbow growls through her teeth, the pain near unbearable. “How do you fix a busted rib?” She tries to think through the red tunnel of pain, trying to find a solution.

“The Health Drink…?” She whispers, turning her head slightly to see her bag is still on her back, along with the fatigues and her knife, which seems to have been placed back in the holster. She moves her head to the bag, fighting against the constant tide of agony from her chest, digging around in her bag before pulling out the brown bottle. “If this stuff actually works…” She thinks, taking the bottle in her hooves and twisting the cap off with her mouth, before spitting the cap out and knocking the whole drink back in one go.

The flavor is a cross between strawberries and gristle, and a near unbearable texture, thick yet slimy. The whole drink goes down eventually, and with a slight gag from Rainbow, the pain begins to melt away. “Holy Celestia, it actually worked.” She says to herself, not quite feeling brand new but far better than before, “Gotta keep an eye out for more of this stuff…”, she says to herself, a big smile on her face. Who knew the little brown bottle would be such a miracle pain killer?

“I’m a mess, aren’t I?” Rainbow says to herself, looking over the now ruined fatigues, and coated in dried blood and small bits of flesh. She brushes the dead skin and muscle off her clothing, leaving the blood alone. “Red looks good on me, I guess.” She thinks. Another survey around the room, now with the red tunnel gone from her vision, she sees a doorway carved into the tissue and fencing of the room, leading away into a fenced tunnel. A note lies in the door frame, the same one from the cabinet. Rainbow walks over to it, and reads it.

The three gates of the soul, locked tight,
A power unknown is kept out of sight.
Keys to the heart are within your grasp,
But to gain them is a most perplexing task.

The first gate and key, a test of the mind,
Questioning yourself will only tighten your binds.
Your path will branch in twine,
Which path will take you to your correct place in time?

Rainbow just frowns at the riddle in front of her. “Oh GREAT, another cryptic bunch of nonsense written to try and send me off on some crazy trip around killer Ponyville…sounds like a blast.” She says to herself, the sarcasm so thick you could choke on it. She picks up the blood smeared paper with her mouth, nearly gagging at the sickly copper taste of it, and places it in her bag. “I just know this is a bad idea, but I’ll need it down the road, I think.” She thinks, turning her head to the dark hallway. She gets up and stretches slightly, the pain killer still doing its magic, and she turns to the middle of the room. The lone lantern sits there, burning brightly, fending off the all-consuming darkness around it and the Equestrian, and she walks over and picks it up in her mouth.

“So it’s either this or my knife in a fight, eh…” She whispers through the handle of the lantern, figuring she’ll think of something as she goes, and she walks out of the room and down into the foreboding hallway.

Several minutes of walking through the pungent rot and wet sliding of flesh on the walls has yielded nothing but more fence, more flesh, and more oozing blood under Rainbow’s hooves, and the smell is getting to her. “Covered in all of it, walking in it, can’t smell anything BUT it…I’m gonna be sick.” She thinks, trying to get her focus off her stomach and on whatever could be in front of her. Pangs of thirst hit her through the waves of utter sickness and threatening gags from her stomach, her brain screaming something is obviously wrong here. “There’s enough blood here to stave off thirst for life…wait what?” She asks herself, amazed how she would consider that.

“I’ve got to get out of here.” She grimaces, before the light finally reveals something other than just more flesh and hallway. A thin wall has appeared in her sight, splitting the hallway in two, both stretching off into the infinite shadow. She stops walking, shaking out her sore ankles, trying to get a bit of blood flowing again before leaning left to stare down one hallway. Nothing but darkness. She then leans right to look down the other hallway. Still nothing but darkness.

“Didn’t the note say something my path branching?” She thinks, furrowing her brow, and she puts the lantern down onto the fence while she takes the note out of her bag. She gets it confused with the first note she and Sehn found, finally grabbing the right one, finding it’s completely clean. She places it on the patch of fence next to the lantern, using the light to read.

“Your path will branch in twine…doesn’t that mean two?” She tilts her head, looking up at the two halls then back down to the note. “Which path…will take me to my correct place in time? Huh? What, I’m going for a trip through time?” She whispers, staring at the uselessly cryptic note. “Load of help you are.”

A sound echoes down from the halls, grabbing Rainbow’s attention. It sounds like a cry of sadness, a wail…

“…Fluttershy?” Rainbow’s eyes go wide, the echo sounding exactly like her. “But…why is she here? And that sound came from both hallways…” She asks the space around her, thinking. She looks back down at the note, reading the second verse over in her head. “Questioning yourself will only tighten your binds…what binds?” She whispers, looking at her legs, seeing no shackles or chains. The cry comes again, but no longer sounds exactly the same. There’s a difference in the tone and volume of the cry. Rainbow closes her eyes, focusing on the sound, and the cries come in very slowly timed waves, each time becoming more distinct.

“…The right path sounds like an older version of her…while the left sounds younger. Correct place in time…maybe it means where I belong at this point in my life? Or when, I guess?” She asks herself, still focusing on the sound. “How am I supposed to choose the right path if I can’t even see her?”

“Sight isn’t needed to choose which is right…” A voice, Fluttershy’s voice, echoes out from the void, right next to Rainbow yet miles away.

“Fluttershy? Fluttershy, are you here?!” Rainbow shouts out into the darkness, looking around for her marefriend.

“What is needed is an instinct…” The voice echoes out once more.

“Please, answer me! Is that really you?!” Rainbow shouts again, distraught. If Fluttershy’s here, and that doppelganger is as well…!

“You must see with your heart and not with your eyes…” The voice echoes once more, the void finally falling silent.

“FLUTTERSHY!” Rainbow screams into the darkness, her voice echoing down the hallways. The crying returns, now more distinct than ever. Something seems different in the cry though…it’s no longer of sadness, but of something else. Rainbow closes her eyes tightly, trying to focus on the sound. She feels something grab her, but not her body…something tugs at her soul. She snaps her eyes open and jumps back slightly, terrified by this sensation.

“W-what was that?!” She says, breathing heavily from the shock. Quickly looking around, the survey yielding nothing but shadow and her tail, she calms down again. “…What was that?” She asks herself again, walking back over to the lantern. The crying returns, and Rainbow closes her eyes again.

The tug returns, now a constant pull towards the right hallway. Rainbow tilts her head, trying to focus on the pull. “You must see with your heart…and not with your eyes…? Is…this what you meant, Fluttershy?” She thinks, looking towards the hallway that’s pulling her in. She opens her eyes, staring at the right hallway, and picks up the lamp. She starts walking down the right hallway, the cry turning into a giggle, and the tug disappears.

“I’m glad you chose right, Dash…” The familiar voice whispers from right next to her, and Rainbow looks over to see a ghost of her marefriend. “So you are here…” Rainbow replies, saddened by the look of the ghost.

“I’m closer than you think…stay strong.” Fluttershy whispers, and kisses Dash on the cheek before fading into the darkness. Rainbow smiles, rubbing her cheek, and with renewed strength, she walks down the hallway, ready for anything.