4: Rush Job
As the pegasus passed underneath the ceiling of her bedroom to dust at the shelves, it snapped out to grab her. A vicious, jagged maw of spikes, designed to slice through an unfortunate victim, removing a large chunk in the process. The jaws of the trap snapped shut and it hung there, tightly closed, metal teeth on metal teeth with nothing between them. It had missed by moments. Rainbow Dash had not noticed.
She snorted at the conquered dust on her shelves and left the room. The little poison darts that shot from her bedroom doorframe barely disturbed the air as they flew. They passed harmlessly through her tail, and if Rainbow Dash noticed, she gave no sign. Not a glance back, where she would have seen a few darts sinking into the cloudstuff of her floor. Not even an ear flick in their general direction.
Rainbow Dash was cleaning. While perhaps not her favourite ever task - it hardly came with the thrill of wrestling a tornado, or stooping into a dive to rescue somepony - but it was one she generally set about without complaining. Keeping tidy was important.
Tidiness started with the self. Now, Rainbow wasn't all that philosophical, and she only had a light grasp on what the word philosophical meant, so self didn't mean some namby-pamby, wishy-washy meditation mumbo-jumbo. It was simply a matter of personal hygiene.
Flying was Rainbow Dash's true passion. Flying meant using your wings, and using your wings meant keeping them preened. Maintaining glossy and functional feathers meant maintaining one's nest. A nasty environment would simply end up messing up your wings faster.
This was unacceptable, and so Rainbow Dash cleaned.
As with all the tasks that Rainbow chose to do, she did it with gusto. She cleaned with intent, using her sharp pegasus sight to eradicate any specks of dirt or debris that might have been littering her home. Dirt wasn't too much of an issue, as she lived a considerable distance above the ground and therefore didn't seen too much of it. Debris could be blown in, of course - dead leaves, bugs, some weird spiky bits of wood today and all of that stuff - and Tank didn't exactly help when he decided to decorate with his vegetables instead of eating them. However, in the world of house-cleaning, Rainbow Dash's true enemy was dust. It came from her, little flaked off bits of skin and hair that had turned against their progenitor. Dust was a betrayal. It was a personal affront to all of her sensibilities and the size of her house didn't exactly help things. Twilight Sparkle or Rarity would likely have sighed at her and muttered hubris, but then Rarity would understand about the dust. It had to go.
Dust was denied entry to this, her own little realm, and if found to be taking residence it would be swiftly eliminated.
She was so focused on her task that she missed the dark-feathered head of a griffon ducking away from the nearest window as she passed. She missed the glint of steel as a dagger flew past, right where she had been until she'd spotted dust on some of the Wonderbolt memorabillia in the hallway outside her room. She missed the muffled curse from outside at the dagger now lodged in her wall, instead pulling back her lips and baring her teeth at this foul, omnipresent enemy that coated her precious collection. If there was an alicorn of Dust, Rainbow was going to find her and tell her to stop. With her hooves and teeth if she had to.
The griffon himself was, well, not having the best day. Grimoire had arrived, early, and under the cover of night he had laden the Guardian of Loyalty's house with traps. All manner of traps, designed to pierce and rend and skewer and kill. He had not accounted for the fact that the Guardian was so fast. Sure, Dirty Work had mentioned that she was a Wonderbolt, but she was zipping around her home like she was racing herself, leaving prismatic contrails and failed traps in her wake. Who did that?
There was maybe the falling spike in the kitchen, and the- clunk -nevermind. Just the spike in the kitchen. Grimoire didn't have much hope for that succeeding at this rate. He peered in through the window, half-expecting the speedy little mare to be gawking at him and activating whatever freaky pony friendship powers she had to blast him out of the sky. Nothing. The hall was clear. Grimoire eyed the dagger.
Time was running out. Sooner or later, the Guardian would notice that something was amiss. Grimoire could only thank the alicorns that she hadn't noticed any of the failed traps yet. It was time to buckle down and just do things the old-fashioned way. Not the old-old-fashioned way if he could help it, he'd rather not leave any traces that a griffon had been involved. Grimoire's dagger was nice and non-identifying. His claw-marks would not be.
He looked around the hallway again. No sign of the pegasus, only her weird flying tortoise pet hovering somewhere near the ceiling. He could probably hop in through the window and grab the dagger, right? The snap of something in the kitchen, and a voice lifting in a wordless sound of confusion - not fear, not pain - sent him scrabbling in through the empty pane and into the hallway. He crept forwards, slinking like only something part cat can slink, his dark feathers and darker pelt standing out starkly against the pale whites and blues of the cloud home. The weird flying tortoise looked down at him and rasped a weird tortoise noise.
Grimoire plucked the dagger from the wall and grinned up at the tortoise. He whispered. "Don't worry, lil guy. Once I've taken care of your mistress, I won't leave you all alone. I've heard tortoise is delicious."
Grimoire turned towards the door to the kitchen, poised and waiting for the Guardian to emerge.
This time it was the griffon that didn't notice something crucial - a very slow narrowing of eyes above him.
Rainbow Dash stared at the enormous spike sticking up out of the floor.
"Eh?" she asked it. As it was a stick, it did not have much to say in response. Then her brain allowed her eyes and ears, at last, to send the information they had gathered up into the area of conscious thought, and Rainbow Dash realised that all those weird sounds and spiky sticks she had found today were connected. Connected to this, the very largest, most spiky stick of them all, one that had almost dropped through her head.
Rainbow Dash might not have been the most studious or deepest thinker of her friends, but that didn't mean she couldn't think quickly or add two and two together when she really wanted to. Sticks didn't, generally, hang around too much on clouds. That meant that they had been enchanted to stay. That or they were cloud pine, but Rainbow wasn't exactly an expert on identifying wood. That would be more for somepony like Fluttershy or Applejack, or Twilight after a dendrology binge. Anyway, the point of that was that somepony had put the sticks in her house.
Rainbow was the self-professed number one fan of Daring Do. She had also been in a number of scrapes with her, and what that experience was telling her, was that these things? They were traps.
Somepony had been in her house and set up traps. Was it Cabelleron? Had he found out where she lived? No, no, Cabelleron would have ponynapped her, and put her somewhere with traps. He wouldn't have set things up here, with no opportunity to gloat. Rainbow mentally scrolled through her list of enemies. None of them seemed likely, not even the ghost of Discord's eight-legged capybara.
A thunking noise from the hallway caught her attention, and her pupils shrank to pinpricks.
"Tank!" she yelped, scrambling across the cloudstuff and bursting through the door into the hallway. "If you hurt my tortoise, so help me Celestia, I'm gonna- oh!"
Rainbow stopped short and sniffed. She looked up at Tank, who seemed smug. She looked down at the unconscious griffon, at the dagger gripped in his talons, and at the rather large welt on the back of his head that could even be seen through his feathers.
"Oh, good boy, Tank," Rainbow Dash said. "I'm gonna get you some strawberries once I... uh."
Rainbow prodded the griffon with one hesitant hoof. "Deal with. This. This guy. I think I've got some rope upstairs I should probably go get."
There was a knock at the door and Rainbow jumped. She looked at the griffon on the ground. What if he had had a friend he was working with? She made her way to the door, but she didn't open it immediately.
"Who is it?" Rainbow asked the door. The letterbox morphed slightly, now bearing one snaggly fang. It blew a raspberry at her, and Rainbow Dash sighed with relief. She opened the door to Discord. He tipped a top hat to her and then rolled up a pair of sleeves.
"I hear you have an unwanted visitor, Rainbow Dash." He threw the bundled-up sleeves over his back. They bounced off the cloudy steps, once, twice, and then over, but Rainbow didn't watch to see if they dissipated or not.
"I, yeah. How'd you know?" Rainbow moved aside to let Discord in.
"My teaparty with Fluttershy was rather rudely interrupted," Discord sniffed. "And Pinkie Pie didn't need any sugar to wake her up with a windrifle cracking windows left, right and centre. It seems that you Guardians have been targeted."
Rainbow Dash's eyes widened. "All of us?"
Discord shrugged. "Seems so. I'm going to be checking on Rarity next, Pinkie Pie was going to drop in on you but as I am here and I seem to be collecting these miscreants, she decided to let me make sure you were all okay. That and Applejack ran past, so Pinkie had to leave rather hurriedly. I retrieved Applejack's victim from her family, and then I came here."
"Applejack's victim?" Rainbow squinted at the draconequus. He shrugged.
"If you'd seen the state of her you'd understand."
"Huh," said Rainbow. "Right. Mine was a griffon. He tried putting traps up everywhere, but..."
"You remain happily unscathed," finished Discord. "Alright, where is he?"
Rainbow turned and jerked her head, leading Discord to the corridor where the griffon still lay prone.
"That's the guy, what are you gonna do with him?" asked the pegasus.
"My house-" Discord said, picking up the griffon and inspecting him, "-has a guest room with a wonderful view of the Eternal Void that lives nearby."
"Lives?" asked Rainbow, and then she threw up her hooves. "You know what, forget I asked."
"Wise," Discord said with a nod, and the griffon disappeared in a flash. "I will now go see to our resident seamstress and make sure she's still alive."
"Wait," said Rainbow. "What about Twilight?"
Discord tilted his head. "Oh, yes, I suppose there'll be one after dear Princess Snarkle as well. Hm. Why don't you fetch Fluttershy, and I'll meet you at the castle."
Rainbow nodded and leapt out of a window, streaking off towards Fluttershy's cottage.
"And to the screaming I go," sighed Discord, snapping his tail.
When he arrived at Carousel Boutique, however, he found nopony there at all.
"Oh," he said. "Bother."
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I am definitely very curious for the remaining two attempts (and conclusion), this has been an entertaining series of unfortunate events.
I love this series.
Also I do not want to visit discords house....
NOOOOOOO NOT THE DREADED CLIFFHANGER
Couldn't help but think of this:
Also liking the story quite a bit so far
Honestly, considering rarity? Her would be assassin is likely having a very, VERY bad time. She's absolutely just one Bad Day from being a villain herself, after all
Why do I think Rarity has already dealt with hers and is on her way to Twilight’s. Because I am willing to be that they either mocked or ruined one of her works.
Bruh, the guy was weak AF, lol.
Huh. You know, I've never seen a headcanon of Rainbow Dash being any sort of neat freak, but when you put it in avian terms like that, it totally makes sense. The faster you fly, the more any little imperfections screw up the airflow.
Wait, how did Tank take out the assassin? Did he just ram into him really hard? It's not exactly clear, and that makes me curious.
Speaking of curious: the Eternal Void is alive?! I need details!
AND THAT'S WHY HE'S CALLED CLIFF HANGER!
The sad thing is I can almost imagine Rainbow setting up such traps herself just to add a bit of spice to an otherwise mundane activity.
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static.wikia.nocookie.net/mlp/images/d/dc/Head_Bonk_S3E11.png
'
Am I the only one to read this and take away the fact that Rainbow Dash knows the word dendrology?
Rarity: "Oh! I'm so sorry Discord, I didn't hear you! When I discovered the nature of my... visitor. I thought they'd be the ideal model for my new range of... recreational attire".
Discord: "In your soundproof basement?.... Uhhh! Perfectly understandable."😅
Am I the only one who thinks some part of the next chapter will have Rarity scolding, "No Opal, spit (him/her) out"?
Ah, I see Discord is a fan of one of the great A.A. Milne.
This is all great but gotta say I love your depiction of Discord's thought process. Chuckled the whole time.
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"Trust me Spike, you only want to get hit in the head by a flying tortoise once."
Further proof that only a fool ignores the loyal pet. Ever. Enjoy those well-earned strawberries, little champion.
I'm imagining "The Eternal Void" as being a TV. Similar effects on those that look upon one.
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They're actually quite a pleasant conversationalist if you can comprehend their existence.
Discord on cleanup duty, aisle 11.