Where Loyalties Lie: Honor Guard

by LoyalLiar

X - Chaos

X: Chaos

- - -

Kilimarejaro's summit rose as three sharp peaks, not altogether as far away as Rainbow had expected. In the distance they had seemed refined and polished reminiscent of the spires of Celestia's tiara. Closer inspection gave them the rough edges and the sheer steepness of jagged teeth, like one might find within the mouth of a foul predator.

Two miles below, Rainbow Dash rose from a brief rest at the broken doorway of an ancient stone structure. Her zebra escort glanced over as she rose, and nodded slowly. His hoof casually pressed a rough canvas bag of fruit in her direction. With a smile and a nod, she pulled out a particularly large, greenish banana.

"Are you sure that this is wise? Of those who enter, everypony dies. If you wish to endanger yourself it is your right, but saddened will be Eye of White."

Rainbow cocked her head. "What, cause of the monster?"

"Your foe is a true danger yes, but-"

"If you're just speaking in rhymes to be polite, you don't have to." Rainbow smiled as disarmingly as she could manage. "You aren't going to hurt my feelings."

He stopped, and looked away pensively. After a moment the zebra frowned. "There are traps, I understand. My ancestors believed the spirit of the temple needed to be protected from outsiders, in order to earn its blessings."

"Was that so hard?"

"The challenge isn't why I was wary. The poetry is-" he stopped just as the final word was about leave his tongue. "It is proper."

"Whatever. You said there were traps. Are we talking, like, trap doors, or spikes out of the floor, or what?"

"I do not know. The temple is ancient." When Dash turned toward the doors, he added a hasty further warning. "You should not go."

"Aw, you were doing so well." Rainbow shook her head. "Anyway, I think I can take care of this. Even if I can't fly yet, I'm still really fast, and I do know a few tricks." She neglected to mention they came from a foal's book series. "Pass me my hat, and I'll get this filly out. What's her name, again?"

"Mzungu."

"Mah-zoon-goo. Got it. Okay, well, wish me luck."

"I shall return to the village at nightfall, if you do not return. I hope you survive long enough to learn."

Rainbow shook her head and responded sarcastically. "Thanks for believing in me. See you in a few." Then she pulled down the pith helmet on her head and strode into the ruins of the temple.

Her first steps were defined by the light leaking in from the shattered stones of the entrance. It carried her a dozen feet into the structure, where a pair of semi-circular stone doors barred the way in further. They bore the clear marks of some sort of decoration, but the ravages of the ages had stolen away all definition, leaving only a bruised and uneven surface that seemed, at most accurate, to have been some poorly-made mockery of the equine form.

The doors opened after no small effort on Rainbow's part, ancient hinges finally giving in to raw knee grease and athletic talent. Dust settled from their sudden motion, leaving behind a passageway into the structure. To Rainbow's surprise, the obvious hallway leading deep into the side of the mountain was lit by tiny magic lights, casting the hallway a faint and depressing blue. The mare took a spare moment to analyze the walls and the floor. She saw no obvious arrow holes, nor hinges where a trap door might lead to a short fall and an untimely demise. No fire was likely to burst out of any secret chambers, nor snakes descend from darkened corners. With a tentative step, she placed one hoof inside the structure.

Nothing happened. She took another, and then another. As soon as she released the doors, they swung shut behind her. A moment of panic was alleviated when a gentle test of her hoof confirmed that they could still be opened from within. Swinging doors seemed unusual for an ancient zebra temple, but they weren't trying to kill her, and as such she was prepared to leave them be.

Each step carried with it a rough flagstone, covered in moisture and the occasional stain of mold. The air was musty and thick and hot above all else, drawing sweat from Rainbow's skin and a sagging pace from her hooves. The hallway progressed on into the shadows, as far as Rainbow could see and farther still. A steady pace carried her forward, interrupted only when she passed the first of the magical lights. The little ball of ethereal glow, devoid of any flame or electricity for a source, shifted in tone from a deep blue to a Tartarian red that only served to darken the surrounding statues. The pegasus turned, spread her wings, and waited. Somewhere nearby, water dripped. All other noise the echoing shadow could bear was the sound of the mare's own breathing, slow and steady.

She forced herself to focus. It was just a light. Nothing had gone wrong. No reason to start talking to herself or freaking out. It wasn't even a trap. Just some strange magic. She closed her eyes for a moment in thought, then pulled off her pith helmet and tossed it down the hall. Sure enough, whenever it passed a light, the light's color changed. Forty feet of hallway were coated in the red of a fire too dark to truly burn, but too pale and lifeless to resemble blood. When nothing further happened, she proceeded forward to grab her hat.

She stopped to a sort of clicking that issued from further down the path. It was organic, clearly, reminding her of an insect with far too many legs. She watched the darkness for some few moments, and for her trouble, earned not a single sight of motion or life. Relaxing, she walked forward a dozen more steps, and reached down to claim her hat.

Before her eyes, the moss and mortar that held the heavy stone bricks of the floor together cracked. She lunged back, and flared her wings. Had they borne her flight, her reflexes might have been fast enough, but instead, the lights all went out as one, and she felt herself fall into a pit of pure darkness. Wind rushed past her, accompanied by the crashing and crunching of stone becoming rubble. Then it hit her, with a heavy stone pressing into the center of her spine and pounding out of her a single sharp and piercing gasp of pain.

She lay there, unable to move for the pain, for some time. How long, she did not know. Darkness surrounded her in all directions, accompanied by the less faint dripping of water, and the occasional sound of some vermin or creature skittering. That, and the breathing, ever present, echoing from somewhere further within. She thought it was her own, echoing back, until she held in a breath and heard it as it echoed without a prompt. Something else was in the shadows with her. Its breath was deep. Its lungs were large.

As the throbbing of her wings and back subsided, she began to feel the rest of her surroundings. The pile of rubble beneath her was dry and dusty, but the stones that had retained their flat smooth surface were moist and slick and, most notably, cold. Not unlike the sensation of placing one's head against a sheet of metal, their frigid wetness drained away the heat of her body, leaving her feathers twitching and shivering as they struggled to preserve her.

She rose slowly, regretting every motion. She could still walk, and her wings still worked. Were it not for Reckoning's seeds, they still would have flown. She only suffered the regret of the pain that seared through her legs with each and every subtle shift.

A slow tickling sensation slid against her hind right hoof. Startled, the leg shifted, producing a sickening crunch, and splattering some foul-smelling liquid onto her hoof. She pulled her hoof away from whatever it was, and jumped away, landing some unknown distance into the darkness. She couldn't even see the nose on her face, until all at once, the tiniest of changes rewrote her entire world.

A single torch ignited above her, revealing her surroundings, as if prompted by her unspoken desires. Her pile of broken stones and rubble had come to rest in the center of a intersection. Two hallways stretched of in four directions, each one spreading into the darkness. She turned to each, but found not a single distinguishing feature. All were cold stone blocks, bearing little bits of moss and roots peeking through the subterranean walls. All the tiny noises had stopped, giving deference to the inexplicable island of light. Rainbow looked back at her rubble again and saw what remained of a centipede, at least two feet long, crushed onto the rocks. Its sewage-green blood stained her rear hoof. Finally, Rainbow looked up. There was the hole, eighty feet overhead. If she waited, and nothing went wrong, she could still fly out.

Waiting, however, was no more an option in that moment than it had been in the Marezambian village. If anything, her urgency was only compelled further by the quiet but constant sounds of life that were slowly returning in the aftermath of her fall.

Her mind asked what Daring Do would do, but the answer wasn't very promising. Ten years of hard-earned education in archeology separated the fictional pony from her real counterpart, and without such an education it would be hard to know if the zebras gave special recognition to a particular cardinal direction.

Instead, Rainbow looked over her choices again, and was surprised by a single change. Another torch had ignited, a hundred feet down the length of another of the nearly-featureless stone shafts. She eyed it cautiously, but it made no change. It burned as though it had always been ignited, though Rainbow knew the idea was ridiculous. Torches burnt out. It only took, what, an hour or so?

Rainbow glanced over her options once more, and then set her gaze again on the path set aside by its light. If nothing else, she could at least see an ambush coming in the light. The mare then remained still only long enough to retrieve her pith helmet, before moving on into the shadowy passages of the temple.

With each step, Rainbow's trepidation grew. Lights appeared again and again, guiding her path, although they were hardly necessary, when she found her way devoid of forks or crossroads, or any choices at all. Instead, the path listed aimlessly back and forth, at times coiling upon itself or twisting in ways that seemed to make no sense at all. Its only reliable constant was the slow but steadily growing upward slope that accompanied each further step. Something was clearly wrong, yet the mare could imagine no better plan than to simply continue forward. Behind her, the path had faded again to darkness as the torches went out.

Her steps finally came to rest at a pair of gem-encrusted doors not unlike those that had first blocked her passage to the entrance of the structure. Their pattern was a swirling figure, looking for all the world like a snake painted into the shape of a zebra. It was long and slender, and its one solid gold eye, marked with a ruby for an iris, stared menacingly back at Rainbow.

"So... this is the worm monster? Kinda weird looking." Her eyes listed lazily up to its face, and the terrible horn and fangs that decorated its brow and mouth. "Yeah, you heard me. You're weird looking." She raised her hooves, as if to strike the stone. "You got something to say about it? Cause after the Dash is done with you, you're gonna think twice about foalnapping zebras." She threw a quick flurry of punches, and one particularly vigorous thrust ended in her hoof lightly tapping the door.

"Always so ready for violence?"

The voice had been masculine, deep, and smooth, with a quality of mystery. Rainbow dropped to all four hooves and lowered herself, wings flared. "Who's there?" She had hoped her voice would come out brave and intimidating, but her first syllables were instead punctuated with what might have been called a squeak. "Who said that?"

Instead of a verbal answer, she found a response in the slow but steady shift of the doors as they swung open of their own accord. She backed away, only to have the last light of the hallway behind her suddenly fall into darkness. All the light she could claim to know was leaking between the crack in the doors. The glow was strong enough to force Rainbow to squint. Warm air rushed over her, tickling her wings and softening the ache in her spine.

When the assault on her eyes finally abated, her vision was filled with an enormous, well finished square room. Zebra spears and shields decorated the walls, along with colorful striped banners of smooth canvas that seemed to bright and too clean to match the age of the structure. Beneath the banners and the weapons, every surface of the walls and ceiling was carved, with intricate details too fine to be made out at Rainbow's distance.

A smooth floor of wide white-stone tiles framed the room's only central feature. The pegasus was inclined to call it an altar. A single stone mass composed of a dozen different textures and materials had been somehow put together, creating a basin at the feet of a statue, some seven feet tall. Like the doors to the chamber, the statue was encrusted in a thousand jewels. They seemed tacked on at random, creating what ultimately resembled more of a disco ball than a valuable and ancient idol.

Rainbow removed her makeshift hat, and rolled it across the floor. It failed spectacularly to be impaled on foot-long steel spikes, or engulfed in a torrent of flames, or pierced by a hail of arrows, or fall into a pit of angry piranhas or crocodiles. Instead, it spun like a dropped bit, before finally coming to rest at the foot of the altar.

The mare put a gentle hoof down on the first step into the room. Nothing happened. Her step was followed by one, and then another, and then a third, until finally her pacing carried her to the side of the towering statue.

"For goodness sake, I thought it would take you all day to walk over here."

Rainbow quite literally jumped at the voice, landing at the side of the misshapen idol. "Who said that? Who's there?"

"Oh, you've forgotten me already?" A quiet 'tsk'ing accompanied a swirl of fog, as the transparent effigy of a brown furred serpentine body came into being. "It's only been, what, four years? Forgive me, but time is so hard to keep track of when you're stuck playing lawn ornament."

"Discord!" Rainbow pulled her hooves up. "How did you break free?"

"You know, that's the thing: I'm still actually sitting in Canterlot, right now." He pulled back his leonine paw, and then brought it around at Rainbow's face. The unexpected slap passed right through her without any contact. "See? Just a figment of your imagination." He let out a twisted chuckle, causing Rainbow's stomach to turn. Then his yellow and red eyes glanced around the room. "Where is this, anyway?"

"Zebrica."

Discord's left eyebrow rose, stopping its motion only when it had traversed not only his brow, but the goat horn atop it. Then his elongated face broke into another smile. "Right, this place. Can't say I'm a fan of the art, but what can you do? A bunch of terrified creatures worshipping an all-powerful spirit, and their art makes me look like a foal's imaginary friend." He idly snapped his fingers. To Rainbow's relief, nothing happened, save the strange collection of noises that issued from his digits. "Thanks again, by the way."

Rainbow stuck out her tongue at him. "That's what you get for messing with us, Discord."

"Ever the cunning linguist, I see." Discord shook his head. "You know, as much joy as it gives me to see you here, I didn't just show up to trade insults."

"How are you here at all?" Rainbow asked.

"I'm anywhere you see my face, Rainbow Dash. The statue gardens. This forgotten zebra temple." He reclined in midair, folding his mismatched hands behind his head. "Even the stained glass windows in dear sweet Celestia's palace." The sarcasm in his voice was punctuated by the echoing of the room. "Not that I can do much, other than talk, at the moment." The 'thumb' of his talon then gestured toward the statue on the altar. "First thing I'd do was turn that into chocolate mousse... or maybe bring it to life. You know, some opera would do wonders for the ambience here."

Rainbow's little patience had run out. "What do you want, Discord?"

"Fine, fine, no small talk. It's not like I came four thousand miles to say hello... Anyway, you're down here to save Luna, right?"

"How do you know that?"

"Oh, Rainbow, you don't get it, do you? I'm Discord! You know, chaos, disharmony... strife?" He gestured idly with his hands at each word. "I know whenever some really juicy chaos happens, and my word, that whole fiasco with Luna, well, it was the juiciest." His fingers snapped, accompanied by the audible quacking of a duck, but nothing else changed. "Darn it, that would have been an excellent opportunity for some lemon juice. In any case, you are down here in the jungle because you want to save Luna, right?"

"Yeah, so what? Are you gonna try and kill me or something?"

Discord shook his head. "Killing ponies isn't really my thing, Rainbow. Life has so much more chaos in it than death." His grin grew frighteningly wide, showing off all of his teeth. "After all, I could have just plucked your head right off last time we met, if I wanted to. But I don't. And I especially don't want Luna to die. She's still my favorite of the six to play with, and I'd hate to have her running off so soon. So I'm going to give you some advice."

"Why should I listen to you?"

"Well frankly, Rainbow, because you don't have much of a choice. Even the little power I have through this stone was enough to get you down here, and now I know the only ways out." He snapped his fingers again, and this time, they were accompanied by the sound of stone grinding slowly against stone. Rainbow's attention was drawn to the far side of the room, where a pair of carved stone panels were sliding away to reveal passages further into the temple structure. "I might have lied when I said I couldn't do anything, but what's a little white lie between friends?"

"You're not my friend, Discord."

"And here I was hoping you could find it in your heart to forgive me." He shook his head, and returned to his usual carefree, mocking grin. "The left passageway leads to смог."

She repeated the word exactly as he had said it. "Smog?" It was Rainbow's turn to raise a brow in confusion. "Is that the name of the monster?"

Discord merely nodded, before continuing his explanation. "The other path leads out of the mountain, to the south. If you take it, you'll be no more than two hours flight from the elk, and Luna's cure."

"So he really does have the cure?"

Discord laughed aloud, and shook his head. "That would be cheating, Rainbow. I have no idea. There's no good chaos in looking at the future and coming up with - ugh - plans." He took a moment to stick a long avian talon down his throat, as if gagging. "Those are your options."

Rainbow looked between the two passageways. "I told the zebras I would rescue Mzungu."

"You're going to get yourself killed if you go that way. And, maybe you don't believe me, but I'd much rather have you around long enough to see you betray your friends." He pushed the tips of his fingers together, creating a steeple-point in front of his face. "So, really, go save her. Path's right there."

Rainbow took a single step toward the path he offered, before stopping again. "What about Reckoning?"

"What about him? Even if you weren't already out here alone, you'd be better off without him." Discord pulled, seemingly from thin air, a green army helmet and a smoking cigar, both of which he quickly put to use. His voice took on a gruff, world-weary tone. "You see things in the field, kid, and they're not all pretty. Sometimes, they make you go pretty darn crazy. Best thing for somepony like that's just to take a hit to the head, and enjoy a long dirt nap."

"Can't you just give a straight answer?"

"Uh, no." Discord shook his head, as if correcting a child on a minor mistake. "It is me after all. Worst case scenario, he gets killed, but if you go down that other passage, you're going to be the one who ends up underground. Now, I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got a caller on the other line, and I think I should really take it. Good luck!" With a snap of his fingers, the draconequus was gone.

"Right..." Rainbow closed her eyes, shook her head, and turned toward the left path. "Like Discord would actually want me to be safe." She stopped only once on her path, to grab a shield from the wall. To her surprise, it was actually a single piece, crafted out of the same wood as the spear behind it. Shrugging, she looped it over her right foreleg, and continued on into the mountain.

- - -

Shining Armor and Going Solo strode side-by-side into a towering cloud hangar adorned with radiant blue letters. Pan-Equestria Shipping Services. The serif-adorned font left a bit to be desired in terms of interest, but such advertising probably didn't matter for what essentially existed as a glorified middle-mare's storage facility.

"Fifteen years ago, this was the Wonderbolts winter training facility." Going Solo gestured upward at the roof a hundred feet overhead. "I guess they didn't like the noise from all the weather factory machines, though."

"Explains the size." Shining Armor was barely interested in her tourist facts anymore, however. It was time for business. "Are you armed?"

Solo shook her. "All I had was a bladed shoe, and I had to drop it when you gave us the guardspony armor. I know they're probably a little big, but you could let me borrow one of yours."

Shining Armor shook his head sternly. "Guardspony horseshoes don't come with blades. Just a steel lining, to protect the hooves from broken glass and debris. I didn't mean for you to fight; I was just checking. Just keep your eyes open, and if something happens, stay back."

"Hey, I'm a lover, not a fighter." Sarcasm pervaded the endearing look she offered the stallion. They walked forward into the warehouse, where aisles of crates were stacked on strangely solid platforms of smooth cloud. A few pegasi flitted overhead, but on the ground, Shining and Solo found themselves effectively ignored. Still, each time one of the other ponies came into view, the pegasus mare found herself watching them closely, expecting some sort of dirty trick. "Do you think something's actually going to go wrong?"

Shining Armor answered with a noncommittal grunt. "If this Go Between actually is the contact for Masquerade, he'll know that he's just as guilty as she is. I'll offer him a lot of leniency if he talks, but he might just jump to conclusions."

"And all these other ponies?"

Shining actually let out a little chuckle at her concern. "I'd be willing to bet no more than two of them are even in on it. More than likely he's working alone. There is a reason we call that sort of thing a conspiracy theory."

"Yeah, well sorry I asked." Solo continued following for only a few moments more, before gesturing ahead with a hoof. "That looks like him, if Grizzaloo's description was right."

The stallion in question was a pegasus of at least Shining Armor's height, with a lean frame that seemed mismatched with his sculpted musculature. A lazily-trimmed goatee dominated his squared jaw. His eyes, seemingly almost pure onyx, were obscured beneath a massive brow. He gave a sidelong glance as the other ponies approached, but his concentration remained on the clipboard he held between his forehooves. "Fancy outfit, buddy. What are you doing in my warehouse?"

"Your warehouse? So you're Go Between, then?"

Shining's question was met with an exasperated groan, as the pegasus put down his clipboard. "Yeah, that's my name. Now who are you?"

"Captain Shining Armor, of the Royal Guard. I have some questions for you."

Though it was subtle, and well hidden in the shadows beneath the stallion's brutish brow, Shining's guardspony instinct could not possibly have missed the quick, instinctual glance toward the warehouse's rear side. The motion confirmed his suspicion of a second exit.

The pegasus spoke up. "Yeah, uh, what do you want? I'm kinda busy here, but we can meet up later if-"

"I don't think that will be necessary," Shining interrupted. "I don't have many questions, but I do need them answered as quickly as possible." The unicorn gave a subtle nod to Going Solo, as close as he could come to a warning of what he was about to do. "Now, I just want to say that I'm not trying to accuse you of anything right now. I just need answers."

"Right... right..." Shining watched as Go Between's wings began to beat more rapidly.

"I was told you were the pony to talk to if I wanted to meet somepony named Masquerade."

He didn't say anything to respond. Instead, the pony turned and fled, pumping his wings as fast as they would carry him. Shining's horn gathered mana. It took only a few seconds to collect enough for his magic to reach out, ready to grab the other stallion.

Then came the pain. It might have been indescribable, had he not faced exactly the same magic from Cloudy Mirror. His attention turned to ending the spell, even as his face contorted in agony as he collapsed to his knees.

"Are you okay?" Going Solo rushed to his side, wrapping a wing around him and trying to help him up.

"Fine..." Shining answered through gritted teeth. "We're on the right track."

"What happened?"

"Masquerade put a spell on him, so that if somepony tried to hurt him with magic..." He shook his head, grateful for a lesson he had learned not a full three days earlier. "It's just an illusion. A nightmare. Pain, all over, but it isn't... real." He drew a breath through gritted teeth. "She can't actually hurt me." He focused, turning his magic inward, and the pain was relieved. He spared himself two panting breaths and then stood upright again. "Solo, stay close."

"What are you talking about? He just got away!"

"If he just flew off, everypony in the city will have seen him. Just because he has wings doesn't mean he can outrun everypony." Shining took a tentative step toward the structure's rear wall. When his leg failed to give out beneath him, he broke immediately into a brisk jog. "He's still here." Shining's horn began to gather magic as he ran. He only stopped when one of his legs shot straight through the floor. "Whoa!"

"What was that?"

"Used too much magic," the unicorn answered. "The spell letting me walk on clouds uses up a lot of my focus."

"Then let's get help. You don't need to take him on your own."

"If we leave now, he'll get away." Shining recast the cloud-walking enchantment on his hoof, and then broke into a full gallop. "We do have to do this now."

"We don't even know where he went!"

Rather than finding a door, Shining Armor simply barreled through the wall of the structure, horn-first. Given that it was only his hooves which offered resistance to the clouds, he left only a few tiny holes to mark his passing. Only a moment later did he realize that the same path was not so easily open to Going Solo. Construction grade clouds weren't the sort of thing you just flew into, as she had explained. He momentarily considered waiting, but he didn't have time to lose.

Outside, the sun was blindingly bright, and the only safety that spared Shining's eyes from its glare was the shadow of the towering series of buildings next door. Trained eyes noticed a disgruntled security pony brushing himself off from the cloud he had been thrown down against. Seeing his trail, the guardspony took a spare moment to gather the mana for a teleportation, followed by a swift prayer that he wouldn't fall through the clouds when he arrived.

He blinked back into being on a long bridge of clouds, flanked on both sides by white pillars. Ahead, a blue and white structure was surrounded by black storm clouds, which threw lightning at random every few moments. Ahead, the guarded door was decorated with bolts of lightning, though the sign overhead simply read 'Caution'.

The weather factory's door guard, on seeing another stallion approaching at a run, spoke up forcefully. "Hey, who the hay-"

"Shining Armor, Royal Guard." The older pony started getting out of the way too slowly, and found himself again face down in the cloudy streets of Cloudsdale. "Sorry!"

The cloud door failed to open for the unicorn. Instead, he again gained entrance horn-first, feeling no more than a wave of moisture as his armored form stepped through the barrier. Inside, the structure was a massive storm, quite literally. A thousand yards of floor space were covered with purple machines which spewed rough black clouds into a single enormous mass against the ceiling of the room. Its shape reminded Shining of a 'do not disturb' sign one might find at a hotel, complete with the hole for the handle. At the far end of the space, a huge hole in the floor opened onto a field of free-floating storm-clouds that hung in open space over the mile of clear air that separated Cloudsdale from the surface. Every few seconds, the edges of the hole glowed with lightning.

Shining Armor didn't have much more time to take in the room. A bolt of lightning struck the ground only a mere few inches from his muzzle. He felt the fur of his coat stand on end. His head shot in the direction of the attack, and saw Go Between struggling with a pegasus in a white lab coat over a small puff of cumulonimbus.

"Everypony, out! Now!" Shining bellowed. Before waiting to see if his words had any effect, he let fly a quick blast of his own magic. It was simple enough, and light enough on mana that he didn't have to worry about his hooves. Unfortunately, it was also slow enough to be easily avoided.

Go Between ducked between the towers of thunderclouds, in the opposite direction of the fleeing workers. Shining ran after him, only to be stopped short with the pegasus bucked a pillar of the rising cloud-stuff. Three bolts of raw lightning flew free, striking all around Shining at random.

The suspect dove for the hole in the floor. He was only a hundred feet away, at most. Shining had one shot. Without hesitation, he threw the simplest and most basic of guardspony hexes. He felt his hooves sink into the clouds, but his magic did not give way. The bolt of rose lightning struck Go Between in left wing, freezing the limb and leaving the pegasus spinning to a stop on the ground. Shining's mind was again wracked with the pain of Masquerade's illusion. He was ready, and a quick burst of magic was all it took to shake off the obvious falsehood that wracked his nerves.

Feeling the softness of the clouds beneath his feet, he knew he couldn't afford any more magic. With no other option, he galloped forward, ready to bring his hooves to bear on the stunned pegasus.

Go Between rose shakily to his feet just in time to take a hard right hook to the jaw. "Go Between, you are hereby placed under arrest and charged with treason and conspiracy to commit murder. Surrender and this will be easy." Shining Armor's warning fell on deaf ears, as a surprisingly powerful hoof slammed against his knee, stealing his footing. He leaned to the side when another blow was aimed for his neck, and instead felt a deadly horseshoe strike the armor on his shoulders. More than one experience had taught him what a blade felt like pressed against armor. Before it could be brought to bear on his neck, the unicorn leapt backward.

"I'm not going with you," Go Between shouted, over the cracking of thunder. "Just let me go."

Shining's answer was to slowly shake his head from side to side. "I can't. I promise, we can deal with things gently, if you'll just give up."

"Gently?" The desperate pegasus laughed. "After what you just charged me with?" Before Shining could stop him, the other pony ran to a nearby cloud machine and grabbed another puff of black thunder. "Just walk out of here, Shining Armor. Leave, right over there, and leave me alone."

The captain took a single slow step toward his adversary. Go Between pulled back a hoof, ready to kick the cloud and send a bolt of lightning flying in Shining's direction.

"Please, Go Between. I don't want anypony to get hurt."

"Then just leave!"

Shining took another step, and to his relief, Between only answered by taking a step backward. They continued this dance for two more steps, matching each other pace for pace.

The fourth step, though, ended differently. The air turned to ozone. A crack of white, like the edge of torn parchment, burned through Shining Armor's vision. He felt the raw heat on his chest.

The sensation that followed was stunning in its own right. He'd expected to be thrown across the room in a burning agony. Instead, his armor glowed with a raw red light, and his horn surged with a calming warmth. Had the energy come from a unicorn's spell, Shining would not have been surprised; that was the purpose of the gemstone coating to his equipment, after all. He had expected the attack to be warded off, but the absorption of its pegasus magic gave him a new advantage. A new well of mana was his to draw upon.

He put aside his new discovery to look the other stallion coldly in the eyes. "It's over now, Go Between. Let go of the cloud, and come quietly."

"Yeah..." the pegasus answered with a hollow voice. "Yeah... go quietly. Safe. Easy..." He took a step forward, and then his deep brow furrowed even more heavily. The captain saw the feather's of his left wing twitch, the first movement since his stunning spell took effect. "No, I don't think so."

The whole world seemed to slow for Shining Armor. He called out the magic that his armor had absorbed, forcing it together into a stronger stunning spell than the one that had tagged Between's wing. At the same time, his hooves began running toward the grounded pegasus. Between himself also broke into a run, toward the hole in the room's floor. Lightning tore through the air, and thunder cracked.

Shining let his overpowered stunning spell fly as a ball of rose magic. It was aligned perfectly, straight for Go Between's core.

The pegasus was ready. He flared his wings, killing his gathered momentum in an instant and allowing the spell to fly freely passed his head. Before Shining could gather any more magic, the other pony's wings were spread, and his body was over the hole. He let another bolt fly, but missed by a fair few feet, as the flying stallion's agility was too much for the unicorn's aim.

Shining came to the edge of the hole as Go Between dove. Below, a field of storm clouds hovered in the air, a few hundred feet below the 'floor' of Cloudsdale's weather factory, and at least a mile above the grassy plains below. Go Between dove until the top two layers of scattered clouds separated him from Shining Armor. Once he felt safe with the barriers he had put between himself and the captain, he spread his wings into a glide, letting his lagging left wing rest.

The nearest of the clouds was at least thirty feet away laterally, and another ten feet down. Without hesitation, Shining took the galloping leap.

For a split second, the unicorn knew what it was to fly. Wind rushed past his face, and the raw power of the sky shattered the air around him. Ahead, his target was getting away, still flying slowly from the sluggish answering of his left wing. The race was on.

The unicorn landed on the black cloud, and felt the sheer power of the lightning dancing on his hooves. The sensation was tantalizing, but the captain couldn't spare the time to enjoy it. Shining leapt from cloud to cloud above Go Between's head. He knew he wouldn't land a spell between the clouds, and he wasn't ready to risk sending his lead plummeting to his death on a bad wing. Instead, he spent the last of the magic from his armor teleporting from cloud to cloud, covering the distance. Then he ran, and jumped, waiting for the opportunity.

It came no more than thirty seconds after the captain caught up with his prey. Ahead, Go Between's path went over the top of a particularly large storm cloud. It would support both ponies, enough to keep them from falling to their deaths.

He ran forward, and leapt down into the open air. Go Between continued his steady glide, passing right into Shining's reach. The captain brought a hoof down on the back of the other stallion's neck, ready to bring them both falling smoothly and steadily into the cloud below.

The plan worked perfectly, until Shining Armor's steel-lined shoe met the unguarded flesh of another pony. The accumulated electricity of a dozen bolts of lightning spread through the bodies of both ponies. In a searing burst of pain, Shining's world turned white, and then suddenly black.

- - -

A trio of stallions in long black coats lined in fur walked in a heavy stilted silence through the halls of Canterlot's palace. At the lead was Red Ink, who also served as the source of the group's silence. The very first rule of being on the Commandant's guard was not to speak out of turn, and the seriousness of this rule could only stand to be further stated when he was in a bad mood.

Red Ink was in a terrible mood. His usually crisp stride had fallen into a forced stomping march, and his wings sat on his back in a twisted wedge. Were he wearing his wing blades, he would have been only a moment's motion away from decapitating any of the servants they passed in the hallways on their journey toward an unclear destination.

Like most of the Black Cloaks, the earth pony named Molot was young for a guardspony, in his late twenties. He was also in the strange position of being somepony whom Red Ink considered a personal friend. Perhaps it was for this reason that when the irate Honor Guard captain let out an pained growl, that Molot broke the very first rule.

"What's wrong, Commandant?" he asked, in rich Stalliongradi.

Ink glanced over his shoulder without stopping his stride. "I almost had that... that блядь, and then she slips between my hooves. Now I am to stay here, honoring the Princess' wishes for peace and happiness, when I should be using my real talents to solve this mess."

"I thought you said that your mentor led his guard the way you do."

"I did." Ink took a moment to reorient himself in the still-unfamiliar halls of the palace, before continuing his discussion. "But the Princess trusted his judgment. She does not trust mine."

"That is only a matter of time, though," Molot offered, hoping to placate his commander.

When Ink's unshod hoof next struck the stone, the masonry cracked beneath his force. "A matter of time is what let Soldier On get away when I should have had her. The same is true of Masquerade. This is my chance to claim them both, and I won't risk that chance playing nice with all the other ponies."

The other pony in the trio was Serp, an even younger pegasus with wild hair and a scruffy chin that he desperately wished would grow into a real beard. His shaky but enthusiastic voice broke into their conversation. "Why did you not break the pegasus to find her then?"

Ink's gaze rotated slowly to his other companion. Most who knew his reputation would have wilted under the gaze, but Serp took it as a matter of pride. "You mean Thunder Crack? Firstly, because he is one of us. On may have earned his loyalty, but my mentor taught him, and as such he is valuable. He will come around when he learns the truth of her treason. Secondly, Serp, is because I cannot break him."

The look on the young stallion's face suggested that Red Ink might as well have denied the existence of the moon. "But you have always said that you could break anypony."

Ink's frown grew ever more pronounced. "Anypony can be broken, in time. The secret is knowing how to hurt them. Pain would not break the sergeant. I would need to know what he truly cares for. That is why we keep secrets. Even the Princess must have something she could not stand to lose. I do not have the time to dig up his secrets. So instead, we are heading to a different sort of prisoner."

Molot raised a brow. "Commandant, if I might speak freely, we are headed the wrong way to get to the dungeons."

"We are not headed to the dungeons." Ink's face betrayed disgust. "You would not keep a real prisoner in those cells. They are good only for rabble and fools. They are easy to break out of."

"So there is a better cage?" Serp seemed intrigued by the suggestion. "Did your mentor tell you about this?"

"In a way." Ink pressed his hooves heavily against a pair of gold and purple doors. "He often told me that he would come here to think. Now be quiet. I would not have you interrupt me here." The doors slammed open, and both Molot and Serp were surprised to find that their path had taken the trio outside, into the massive gardens built onto the cliffs behind the palace.

Though neither of his subordinates understood his path, Ink's steps carried him slowly but surely toward a very peculiar statue, in the far corner of the garden. He passed dozens of statues, wondering with every glance whether or not they shared the same peculiar secret as the one at his destination. It was the sort of punishment he would use as a threat, in a heartbeat, but it seemed to cruel to be a tactic of Celestia's kind heart. Perhaps it was possible he had underestimated her.

He stepped to the foot of a towering, and rather malformed statue of a hideous beast. Although he could not actually read the common Equestrian plaque below its mismatched feet, he knew what it said. "разлад" Without another word, he lifted a hoof and pressed it against the cold stone of the statue.

The chill of the stone send shivers up Red Ink's leg. Before his eyes, the world was plunged into shadows. Darkness surrounded him, consuming his vision until even the statue and his own leg disappeared from his vision. His body shook with cold, a sensation he had long since learned to ignore from the ice of dozens of his homeland's winters. Wind blew against his exposed coat, burning as only the chill of the wind could. In it, he felt the cold wetness of snow, coming to rest on his body and melting into little droplets of water.

After the feelings came the sounds. Water was dripping somewhere nearby, eking out the last bits of motion it could before the chill locked it in place forever. The wind howled, and then went back to gentle whispering in a patter only its maker could comprehend. And, above all else, there was a song. Dozens of voices lifted up, calling out in the crisp tongue of Stalliongrad and joining together. Ink should have known the words; he knew that he knew them. When he had come face to face with Soldier On, it had been that same tune that he hummed, slow and mournful, knowing that the notes would hurt her as no blade or hoof ever could. Yet in his mind, it was as if the lyrics had been stolen away, and he could not remember why he even cared for the music.

The smell of crisp cold air and the smog of foundries came next. Compared to the warm, gentle air of Canterlot, the pragmatic stench was a welcome taste of home. Stalliongrad didn't pretend to be something it wasn't; it was a place for workers and common ponies to make their lives without worrying about what others thought of them. Some thought it was unwelcoming or cruel, but Red Ink loved it because it was genuine.

The last thing to return was his sight, and it brought with it a countless list of questions. Red Ink stood on the rough concrete path that surrounded the meager garden of his father's home. It had been ages since the little square of dirt had grown any plants. Father had often told him of how Mother loved to grow vegetables there, somehow keeping the frost away from all manner of gentle plants. Ink only knew it as a patch of dirt and rocks, but he had loved it just the same as a place to have snowball fights with his brothers, or to run around in the summer, when the snow melted and the three colts could explore the world around them.

Red Ink was not surprised to see his home, though his memories of Stalliongrad covered the entire city. It was special, in a way that the rest of the city lacked for him. It alone was defined by his long-lost youthful innocence.

What the captain was surprised to see was the other pony standing at the far end of the garden, staring out at the rising sun. Ink recognized him as he might have a photograph. The stallion was probably no more than forty. His blue-gray coat had begun to show the slightest favoritism for the gray, but his mane was still a sheer and healthy black. His flanks bore cutie marks of plain gray shields, placed carefully beneath and between bolts of lightning that also looked as though they had been forged of metal. Though his muscles were lean, and his wings well trimmed, the way he sat gave him a tired air of age that surpassed the truth.

"Mentor?"

The other pony turned around, looking straight at Red Ink with a pair of tiny red eyes, looking as though they had been painted on a yellow canvas. "Hahahaha! You really believed me for a second, didn't you? Oh, that's too rich. Just, priceless."

A sudden anger overtook Red Ink. Without another thought, he took to wing, ready to strike the taunting creature. Discord, still wearing the form of the late Commander, waved a hoof dismissively. A gust of wind threw Ink against the wall of his home, accompanying a loud crack. "What's wrong, Ink? Afraid your underlings will see some emotion out of that face of yours?"

The pegasus responded by rising to his hooves and charging on foot. "You're really going to try and fight me? Physically? Please, Red Ink, you might as well be trying to drown a fish." Discord's limbs stretched and grew until he had assumed his original form. "Oh, but where are my manners? I'm Discord, the spirit of chaos and disharmony. Red Ink, I have to say, I'm a big fan of your work. The way you dealt with all the dissenters after your Revolution really warmed my heart." Laughing, the spirit collapsed backward into midair. "Now, what brings you to my... residence?"

The soldier scraped a hoof on the icy ground. "I need to know where Masquerade and Soldier On are."

"Yes, I bet you do." Discord looked around, as if checking to see if anypony were looking. Then he leaned down, still a dozen feet away from Red Ink, and held both his mismatched hands to his mouth. His words came out in a whisper. "Why should I tell you?"

The pony pondered the words for a moment, putting together his best common Equestrian. "Because I otherwise will be making life unhappy, Discord." Red Ink put on his most intimidating face, and received laughter in return.

"Wow. At first, I thought you were just angry. I didn't realize you were actually this thick. Look, Captain," he added a particular touch of sarcasm, along with a sloppy salute to the word. "Let me explain something. You can't hurt me. You can't touch me. And you certainly can't scare me." He snapped his fingers idly, and Red Ink jumped forward when a slimy... something brushed against his back. "I can scare you, though."

After regaining his composure, the hard young pony turned a disappointed and furious face toward the spirit. "So I have wasted time?"

"Oh, no. Not at all, no. I am just..." Discord looked away, with a finger on his chin. When he looked back, he spoke with a decidedly different tone. "I am looking for trade if you are wishing answers."

Ink's glare grew narrowed. "Do not mock me."

"Why not? I mock everypony else. Anyway, I imagine you're probably wanted to do things the way he did." Discord's lion paw momentarily gestured to the edge of the garden, where a wispy figure of the Commander appeared for a mere moment. "It's pretty simple. I like to hear a good story. He used to tell me about all the ponies he met and the things he did. That's how I know about you, after all." The Draconequus grinned. "So you tell me something personal, and maybe a bit chaotic, and I'll consider telling you what you want to know."

As Ink pondered the demand, Discord snapped his fingers. Before the floating spirit, a table appeared, holding a few bottles of fine Bitalian wine, a bowl of little white beans in split green pods, and what appeared to be a grilled duck liver. The Draconequus' tongue flickered in and out for a moment, before he glanced over to his guest. "Care for something to drink?"

"Do not tempt me." Red Ink shook his head. "What do you gain from story?"

"Well, entertainment. It's boring being a lawn ornament for a few millennia, even if I still do get to peek in on all the fun chaos that goes on in the world. But I also do have my uses for information. You can cause quite a bit of chaos with just the right few words."

"And you are telling me where to find them?"

"Think of it this way, Ink. If I didn't tell you, would you come back to tell me another story later?" Discord offered his most genuine smile, and spread his hands as if trying to appear welcoming. "So, if you're up for it, tell me about your brother."

"Foresight?" Ink shrugged, rolling the fur collar of his signature coat. "He is bureaucrat. Politician. Loves his-"

"No, no, no." Discord shook his head. "I don't care about him. Your boring brother isn't the reason you're trying to kill Soldier On or Masquerade, is he? There's no fun to be had listening to his story. No, I want to know about the third brother. What was his name...?" The spirit scratched its head, feigning ignorance.

Red Ink took a deep breath and settled himself. Although the idea of the discussion was discomforting, it would do not dishonor to his brother's memory to describe him. "Midnight was pegasus. Younger brother. When we were young, we flew together..." The broken language trailed off as Ink looked up. Overhead, his memories were dancing for both himself and the Draconequus to see. Figments of a pair of pegasus colts spun around each other in the air, struggling in a friendly fight.

They froze, just as Red took the advantage and flew overhead. Discord looked to the grown stallion expectantly. "You have to keep talking. That is how a story works, after all."

Ink nodded coldly. "He got his cutie mark first, when was very young. Five? I can't remember." The transparent little colt looked at his flank in awe. A burst of white light and magic revealed the mark of a shield, emblazoned with a crescent moon on a field of stars. "He saved me when I got lost flying in the dark. Always good at finding ponies, tracking them. Perceptive. Came in handy during revolution. We were guardspony together, in Baron's army first. We were fr..." He hesitated on the word, as if unsure whether it belonged on his tongue. After a few moments of silence, he chose another word. "Brothers."

Two older colts wrestled together on the ground, considerably more aggressively. Red Ink was the larger, bearing on his flank the mark of a quill, tipped with the point of a sword. A line of bright red was drawn behind it, though whether it was blood or merely ink, none could say.

"When we grew older, father taught us politik. He saw how unfair Baron was. His voice showed many others." The memory shifted to a massive crowd of ponies gathered in the garden. Standing with his back to his home on top of little more than a wooden crate, Watchful Eye shouted silently at the gathering. At his hooves, his sons listened intently to his words. "We started revolution."

Ink had been expecting to see more of his memories pan out before him in sepia silence. He would have known the first battle, and the fires in the snow. Instead, the scene froze, and the voice that spoke up was not his own, nor Discord's.

"Red Ink! What do you think you are doing?"

He turned in recognition of the voice, and immediately dropped into a bow. "Princess."

"There is a reason I did not suggest going to him first in search of information, Captain." The Princess' tone was not so much angry as disappointed. "Come with me." Her horn ignited in a potent golden glow, which tore open the air at the far side of the 'garden', leading out into the warm late-summer afternoon of Canterlot.

"Well, it was nice to see you too, Celestia. Are you sure you want to be going so soon? I was just getting to know your new 'best friend'." The Draconequus' eyebrows rose and fell over and over in rapid succession.

"Neither Red Ink nor I have time to waste on your lies, Discord."

"That really is a shame." The spirit smiled. "There are so many things I could tell you. For example, at this very moment, your precious Bearer of Loyalty is considering throwing away the gift you so kindly gave her by fighting a dragon in Zebrica."

Celestia's gilded hooves stopped halfway to her own portal. "How do you-"

"You spent quite a deal of magic on that, didn't you?" Discord's leonine paw gestured to the dull pink mane the Princess was sporting. "I have to say, I do love your new look, though I still think you should have left it the way I styled it a few years back." As if to make his point, Discord conjured a perfect statue of Celestia's form, rearing back in fear and surprise. His knuckles idly rapped against its flowing mane. "It was quite... slimming."

The Princess planted her hooves firmly in the snow, shooting the spirit a defiant gaze. "Answer me, Discord! How do you know about Rainbow Dash?"

"Oh, Celestia, isn't it more fun not knowing how it all works? That's what I've always thought, anyway." The mirth dropped from his voice for a moment. "You should probably be grateful, too. If I'd just bothered to look at the future and actually plan my return, I could have burnt your stupid letters, and then I'd be ruling the world right now." After the dull diatribe, he snapped his fingers, conjuring a storm of tri-toned lightning. Ink didn't recognize the colors, but they were all too familiar to the Princess. "To answer your ever-so-polite question, Princess, I gave your precious subject a choice between going to her death, and betraying a friend. I was rather hoping she'd run off and save Luna at the cost of his life, but I confess that I didn't get to see the end. Your precious Captain interrupted me. So now, again, I'm trying to give him some advice that will save pwecious widdew Woona."

Celestia shook her head and turned away from the mischievous spirit. "He's playing with you, Captain Ink. We should be going."

The pegasus followed the towering alicorn toward her magically formed exit, only to stop at the barricade when the desperate being shouted one last warning. "Soldier On is on her way to Baltimare, looking for somepony named 'Hard Boiled'. If you hurry you can catch her."

Ink nodded, unable to resist a parting word. "Perhaps we speak again."

"We'd better!" Discord shouted, as the exit to his own pathetic realm faded from sight. "You still owe me a story!"

- - -

Rainbow's passage rose from carefully crafted stones into unshaped raw rocks. With each step, the unfamiliar weight on her foreleg reminded her of the weapon she was carrying. Ahead, some strange monster separated the pegasus from a cure for the Princess, if Discord was to be believed.

Fortunately, the journey was short, and ended with a small step into a little cavern. An overhead lamp gave light to what seemed to be a storeroom. Shelves covered every surface of the natural walls, holding up countless mysterious items, only half of which were labeled in a language the mare couldn't understand. They held her attention only momentarily, however, as a clearly audible voice could be heard through the door at the far side of the room.

"That smells magnificent, Mzungu." The tone of the speaker was rough and coarse, and far too deep to belong to any pony or zebra Rainbow could imagine. Her ears perked, recognizing the name of the zebra mare she was searching for. Moving as quietly as she could with the spear on her leg, she edged up to the door and placed an ear smoothly against it. The voice continued. "Give it three turns, counterclockwise."

After a moment of silence, "It still seems too acidic, Smog."

Rainbow was confused. She was speaking to the worm monster? And what did they mean about acid? With stealth carefully learned from years of pranking with Pinkie Pie, Rainbow cracked the door and peeked through.

The cavern contained two relatively small figures, though the statement was only true for one because of the enormity of the cavern. The first was a zebra mare, probably five or six years Dash's younger. Gold bands clinked loosely on her neck and legs with each movement as she stirred a smoking golden cauldron with a long silver ladle.

Across from her, sitting atop a huge pile of gold, was a titanic dragon. Blue scales ranging from near-black to the bright tone of Rainbow's own coat adorned his hulking form, which filled most of the cavern. Little bursts of smoke slid out of his nostrils with each of his slow breaths, but judging by the focus in his reptilian eyes, he was clearly awake.

The dragon drew in a deep breath, and then locked up. Slowly, his eye shifted to look in Rainbow's direction. The pegasus froze in place.

"My, my. A visitor? Come closer, little pony. I won't hurt you."

Rainbow's wings flared up, and she tried to look as tough as possible. Having been confronted, there was only one thing to do. "I'm here to rescue Mzungu. Let us leave and I won't have to hurt you."

The dragon looked to the young zebra, and the pair shared a laugh strong enough to shake the cavern. Rocks tumbled from the ceiling. "You are misunderstanding the situation, pony. I am 'Could', and this is Mzungu, as you already know. What is your name?"

Rainbow cocked her head sideways, thoroughly confused. She'd been expecting a 'worm monster', not a dragon, and one that was willing to talk instead of simply frying her with his breath was more surprising still. "Uh, I'm Rainbow Dash. Isn't your name Smog?"

The dragon nodded. "смог, yes." The change in intonation was subtle, but nevertheless evident. "I know it sounds like one of your words, but I am not named for haze or mist or smoke. Still, you are welcome to call me Smog if you wish. Names mean little, in any case."

Mzungu slowly walked closer, abandoning the golden pot she had been tending to. "You're really a pegasus... Are you from Cloudsdale? Or Canterlot? What's it like? Oh, how is my Equestrian? Do I sound terribly backwards?"

"Please, Mzungu, do not drown her with your curiosity. There will be much time for you to talk, but I imagine that her journey has left our guest hungry. Do you care for rassolnik?"

Rainbow looked between the faces of the dragon and the zebra. They certainly seemed friendly enough. With a slow, loping gait defined by the spear on her leg, she made her way over to the two. "Uh... I don't know? What's rassolnik?"

"The only pony dish I know how to cook," Smog answered. "Cucumber and barley soup, which I am told it quite hearty. It contains no meat." One of the dragon's dexterous fore-claws grabbed a rough clay barrel near the door (nearly as big as Rainbow herself), and pulled out a few dozen red vegetables. Without any particular pomp, he tossed them into the golden pot. "It should be ready soon. Now tell us, Rainbow Dash, why you have come all this way to 'save' Mzungu?"

The pegasus nodded. "It's kind of a long story, really. I'm here in Zebrica trying to save Princess Luna..."

The story continued for a few long minutes, even as Mzungu gathered bowls from the storeroom that marked Rainbow's passage, and returned to serve their dinner. Dash's description of her battle with Masquerade earned a look of incredulity from Smog, while Mzungu seemed entranced by every word of description the pegasus offered of her distant homeland. Often, she tried to interrupt with a question, but at each heading, Smog held up a claw to silence her. Rainbow explained her journey to Zebrica, and finally concluded with her encounter with the Marezambian herd.

When the story was over, Smog let out a hearty chuckle. "You've had a terrible misunderstanding indeed, Rainbow Dash. I am the 'worm monster' you've been sent to slay."

"But you're not a worm."

"The word is wyrm. A subtle distinction, I will admit, but in my tongue, such distinctions are common. It is the term of my species for a dragon that has grown to their full size naturally, rather than through an overgrown horde and a greedy desire for everything they see. Few of our number survive to such great age. But that is not the great misunderstanding. You see, I did not kidnap Mzungu."

When Rainbow looked her way, the zebra nodded. "I heard about the dragon on Mt. Kilimarejaro, and I came to learn from him."

"Learn from him?" Rainbow again found herself confused. "What, like cooking?"

"As you are no doubt aware, the Marezambians are quite... xenophobic." When Dash's confusion at the word was made clear, the dragon continued. "They distrust outsiders. Mzungu wanted to see the world, and learn its ways."

"I heard all sorts of stories about pony medicine when I was younger, and I wanted to learn how to use it to help my tribe. But Kiongozi wouldn't let me go."

Rainbow nodded in understanding. "So you ran away, and came here?"

"Yes. That was almost two years ago. In that time, I have taught her much, but soon she will need to go out and see the world herself."

"I'm so excited to go!" The zebra positively bristled with happiness at the thought. "Can you take me with you, when you leave?"

"Uh, I don't know... I guess?" Rainbow shrugged. "I'm not really thinking about leaving any time soon. Like I said, I need to take you back to the herd, so I can save Princess Luna."

Smog looked to the far cavern wall, where a sizeable hole gave egress to the open air. "You are already here on the mountain, free of their control. Why not simply go on your own?"

"I can't. Dead Reckoning is still with them, and I'm not sure what they'll do if I abandon him."

Smog nodded. "This is troubling indeed. However, I fear that if Mzungu returns, they will hold her, unable to leave. I am hesitant to send her back."

"Come on!" Rainbow cried out in agitation. "Do you not understand? Princess Luna will die if I don't go!"

"And you think it would be any better for Mzungu if she were forced back to her herd?"

Rainbow nodded firmly. "Of course! She wouldn't be dead."

"I'd be stuck there!" Mzungu shook her head. "I don't see why you don't just fly down there and talk to Fallaner yourself!"

"I'm not leaving Dead Reckoning behind!"

"What does this other pony mean to you? By your account, you have only known three days, at most."

The pegasus looked at the dragon like the monster he had been made out to be. "Why should it matter how well I know him? I'm not going to risk him getting hurt or killed when she can just come back with me."

Mzungu clearly had an incensed response, but Smog silenced her with a single raised claw. Only when the young zebra had calmed did his slit-eyed gaze settled firmly on Rainbow. His attention felt heavy, and tiring. "Let us not let emotions define our actions, Rainbow Dash. Think calmly for a moment, and listen to me. In your culture, there exists a concept known as the Duel to the Mark. Have you heard this term?" Rainbow shook her head to indicate her ignorance. "This is no surprise. Such activity was more prevalent in the past. Once, there was a time when your kin would resolve their disagreements with violence. Proud ponies would battle one another to determine who was in the right. The cruelest of these traditions was the Duel to the Mark. Two ponies would fight, and the winner would strip from his... victim, the purpose of their existence." A claw gestured toward Rainbow's cutie mark. "Often, amongst unicorns, it would end with a shattered horn, or stolen lands. Anything that could be done to humiliate and destroy the loser. To lose was considered a fate worse than death."

"What does that have to do with this?" Rainbow asked. "I don't want to hurt her; I just need her to head back so Reckoning and I can leave."

"And do you truly believe that when she in turn tries to leave, she will be permitted to?" The wyrm shook his head, stating bluntly his own interpretation. "You would deny her everything she believes in, and it would be unfair of me to let you force that on her. It would be as cruel as stripping her of her own mark."

Something inside the pegasus snapped at the words, and she in turn snapped at Smog with her own. "Life isn't fair! I never wanted to be a guardspony, but here I am! And if she has to go home to make sure that nopony gets hurt, then that's too bad for her." Rainbow stood up and took a firm step toward the Mzungu. An enormous blue fist smashed down between the two equines, sending fissures through the stone of the cavern floor.

"This is not your choice to make, pony."

Mzungu spoke up. "If she really needs me-"

"Don't be convinced to give up your dreams over this. It is your life, and I won't see your free will taken from you." With a rumble and low grow, the titanic creature rose up to his full height, the top of his head scraping the cavern ceiling. "You are no longer welcome here, Rainbow Dash. Choose now if you will lose your Princess or risk your partner, but you will not steal my student from me."

Rainbow's mind was a boiling pot of a thousand emotions and ideals. Pride, rage, and loyalty stood foremost amongst them, drowning out the tiny voice of fear and reason and desperation. The mare stood tall and defiant, looking up at the enormous creature, whose jaws could devour her in a single easy bite. Her face turned to steel, and a subtle energy built behind her eyes.

"I've had enough of everybody getting in my way, Smog. Try and stop me." Without waiting for a response, she took off at a stilted gallop toward the zebra mare.

"I do not enjoy this," was Smog's entire reply, as a fiercely sharpened foreclaw was swung down toward the running mare. Rainbow had been expecting the attack; she leapt to the side, using her wings for the bit of extra distance she needed to clear the length of his hand.

She might have screamed in joy, under better circumstances. The air beneath her feathers bent to her will, launching her forward nearly the full length of the cave. Though faint, a trail of rainbow marked her passing. Her magic felt tired and worn, as though she had spent the last full day in the air instead of on the ground. Nevertheless, it was there.

Smog glared at the sudden motion, and then brought his own enormous wings to bear. A surge of wind to rival any hurricane filled the cave, sending Rainbow spinning into its wall. She recovered just in time to see his claw again moving toward her, and with desperation, she leapt between his fingers.

A pump of her wings put her in the air, but it wasn't truly flying; instead, she felt more like she had simply taken a huge jump, followed by a glide. Still, the speed was enough to swoop down toward Mzungu.

"Get off me!" the zebra shouted.

"Sorry, but I have to do this" Dash wrapped her legs around the zebra's core, and pulled up. Her grip was strong, but her wings and her magic still weren't ready for such a load. With a sudden change of trajectory, the two fell to the ground, where they rolled to a stop in a heap.

This time, Rainbow wasn't fast enough to avoid Smog's grasp. The needle-points of his massive clawed fingers held her gently but firmly, as she was lifted to his head to meet his gaze. Along the way, she bit and beat and bucked and even stabbed at his claws, trying to loosen his grip. The thick scales covering his body resisted every attack.

Finally, she came face to face with the dragon, looking at level into his face. His brow narrowed coldly. "I am sorry, Rainbow Dash. You must leave her alone."

"I can't!" Rainbow protested.

"Then this is the end of your journey."

What followed was a slow draw of breath, and then the dragon's mouth opened wide. Rainbow's conscious mind was filled only with the horror of the heat to come. She needed to do something, or without a doubt, she would die. She lunged forward as far as her free upper limbs would allow, seeking to harm without thinking. The spear on her leg moved forward with her, unguided by will beyond the instinct to survive at all cost. Flying free of its ancient straps, torn from a temple wall only hours earlier, it soared through the air. Whether by chance or fate, its path flew directly for the wyrm's wide right eye.

What followed was a strange and terrible silence. No great gout of blood or gore flew from the wound. The shaft simply sank into that reptilian eye, leaving only a tiny red drop to mark its passing. The golden orb swallowed the entire weapon, hiding it from view somewhere deep within the recesses of Smog's skull.

Suddenly, sharply, and firmly, the dragon's breathing stopped. Rainbow felt his grip loosen, but at the same time, his body froze up. She struggled free as he began to tip forward, and found herself gliding down slowly as a fell crash echoed the collapse of his body onto his golden hoard. A hail of coins and a wave of precious metal slid suddenly across the cavern floor, and when it ceased, all was silence.

It echoed how Rainbow felt. Empty, cold, and hollow. What was she supposed to do next?

"You... you killed him..." The trailing pain in Mzungu's whisper was hidden behind a stalwart face. There was anger in it, along with the crippling sorrow, but both were subdued and muddled. She didn't sneer or cry or shout. She looked Rainbow straight in the eyes, and shook her head slowly. Disappointment flowed freely from the look.

"I didn't want to."

The zebra looked at the corpse of her mentor, and stated her response coldly. "That won't bring him back."

"I'm sorry."

"Nor will that." She turned to the cavern's external opening, and took a hesitant step forward. "You won. The strong triumph. We should go."

Part of Rainbow wanted to protest. She had been protecting herself. She had been protecting Dead Reckoning. If Mzungu had just come with her, it wouldn't have happened. If Smog had given in, he would still be alive. She didn't want to kill him. She didn't enjoy it. She wished there had been some other way.

She knew better than to say any of those things. They were words meant for her own benefit, not the zebra's. The sorrow, or grief, or whatever else was to come of her actions, would be paid for another day. Rainbow Dash's way was to get things done. To help others. And so, steeling herself and putting aside her emotions as best she could, the mare strode forth into the light of day.

Outside, Mzungu's hoof was tracing something in the dirt. Rainbow knew the characters as the zebra language, though she had no hope of reading them. She watched them traced slowly and softly, knowing that they would last only through the first rain or snow or wind to claim the mountain. She didn't ask what they said. She didn't have to.

"You wish to know?" Mzungu again spoke coldly, trying to hide her emotions just as Rainbow had, but failing.

"The old story here, the mountaintop sage.
They saw only a monster, plagued of cruel heart.
Few understood the wisdom he might impart.
His words and experiences, the gifts of his age,
were stolen away when we were torn apart.
Now here he remains, a corpse in a stone cage.

Farewell, amongst the Smog of death.

You Could have been so much more."

Comments

[LoyalLiar]

Well, to start off this one:

In case it wasn't clear, смог is pronounced 'smog' in English: the 'c' makes an 's' sound in Russian, and the 'г' character sounds like a 'g'. It is sometimes used as an English loan-word (referring to smoke or haze), but is also the past tense of 'can', as in could. My goal was to make that clear within the text, but in case it wasn't, here's the explanation.

Serp and Molot are 'Sickle' and 'Hammer', in a similar vein. You're free to call me unoriginal for those; paired Russian words that would be familiar to an English speaker seem few and far between.

On to more interesting matters:

It's always weird writing Red Ink's backstory, because I know that on some fundamental level, you (the audience) aren't really supposed to empathize with him. At the same time, though, while he is obviously an antagonist, he isn't 'just the bad-guy': the passage here was my attempt to add some dimension to his character after several chapters of him just running around basically being a more evil version of Dirty Harry.

On the topic of his segment of this chapter, one might note that I've revealed a rather different side of the Commander than has previously been presented. In fact, Red Ink's interpretation of his mentor is quite different than Shining Armor's glowing (if distant) version of the pony. My hope is that this conflict of images will help make eventual revelations of his character more nuanced, but that's an issue for another day. For now, I guess my question is what you all think of him, in regards to the ways he is presented.

Obviously, this chapter marks a big change for Rainbow, which will have huge ramifications in coming chapters. I hope you're looking forward to it.

Finally, a special thanks to Kawasakikx125 for the new cover art!

Thanks for reading!

-Loyal Liar

[SatoshiKyu]

1414304
I think The Commander is a pretty cool guy, eh chats with Discord and doesn't afraid of anything.

[MellowMabari]

Huh. Well a lot happened in this chapter, that's for sure. One of the small things that got to me was the centipede. Working at Nurseries for the past five years has introduced me to a lot of bugs, but centipedes (and spiders, ugh, spiders) still creep me out, and one that's two feet long... blegh

Dash's stint as Daring Do made me smile, but her Dragon killing was a big shock to me, especially after he turned out to be a pretty cool guy. I swear I actually felt a sinking feeling in my stomach when it happened. I expected Dash to be more upset, considering how she reacted to Reckoning killing that Manticore, but I get the feeling she's still kinda in shock and is focussing on her goal to avoid dealing with it. By the way, was his name a shout out to the Hobbit? ya know, Smaug/Smog?

I also really liked Discord's little appearances - you portray him well, and I like fics where he's more jokey than fatal (don't get me wrong, darker interpretations are cool, too) but I feel your version fits better into this story. So yeah, still loving this and I can't wait to see what happens next, especially the aftermath of the Dragon slaying.

[SatoshiKyu]

1416892
The Force is strong with this one.

[SnowyNightt]

what a sad ending to the chapter

[viofriedsevey]

Nice, keep writing them chapters! This is my favorite story that im currently reading.

[LoyalLiar]

1416892

Yes, Smog was originally a Tolkien joke; actually, It's kinda funny how that made his whole character:

My first thought was to just call him Smog and have him be some dragon she fights. Then, recalling Celestia's statement about the Dragon Language from Chapter... 8(?), I knew his name had to be in Russian, so I looked up the English translation of Smog. When I found out that there was a word in Russian pronounced almost identically to 'smog', I knew I had to make that a thing. 'Could' or 'Was Able' gave me a lot of room for a tragic backstory, but given that (a) he only lasted one chapter, and (b) we already have Dead Reckoning for that sort of theme, I was left wondering what to do with his personality.

The result was the idea of the wyrm: a Dragon who due to his size, values something other than just cash. You don't see much of it, due to Dash's complete obliviousness to the idea, but the fundamental backing to Smog's dialogue is that he is 'the philosopher dragon'; it comes out in his stiff opposition to Mzungu being taken away, and also to his reactions to things like what Dash chooses to call him ("...names mean little anyway.")

Looking back, it's really weird how that escalated from a not-particularly inspired joke into a full blown character.

[derpyhooves15]

Wow! Again, you do not stop amazing me.

[djthomp]

Ouch, that's really sad.

Not sure I have a great deal of sympathy for Smog, however. It was a bad situation, but in my view at least he was the one who escalated it into violence to stop Dash, most likely with the expectation that Dash had no chance against him, and sometimes violence turns on you.

Loved the inclusion and use of Discord.

[edgelesspigeon]

Seriously. This story just keeps getting better and better. It easily now one of my most anticipated fics on this site. Keep up the good work.

[thehitman4u]

This story is in my top 5 for waiting to update and read list, I love the story so far and the way I believe you portray the characters well. Please keep up the great writing and I will continue to refresh my folder list in the hopes of more chapters. Thanks for the great read.

I do not see a Derpy Pony.
I see Derpy, a pony.

I will eventually find out how to have a sig on Fimfiction.

[DualThrone]

Perhaps I've watched the show too much or gotten a somewhat idealized image of Rainbow Dash as a pony... but it's difficult, to the point of breaking suspension of disbelief, to imagine her responding to "this dragon is my friend and is teaching me things and I'm so happy with him" with "too bad". Even in the extremity of loyalty to her mission, that level of coldness feels very ill-fitting in a pony like Rainbow.

[LoyalLiar]

1519367

I didn't really intend for Rainbow's response to be quite interpreted so coldly. She acts as she does because she doesn't really understand Mzungu (and especially Smog's) side of the argument. In Rainbow's eyes, its just a matter of ponies dying vs. ponies not dying - and for her, that's an obvious choice. While she's a very loyal friend, she can also be somewhat blunt in her methods, and she certainly doesn't care about hurting somepony's feelings if its going to save lives.

The essential conflict there is the collision of points of view. To Smog, denying somepony their desires (or their special talent) is just as cruel, if not worse, than killing them. To Rainbow, life come first, and that's all there is to consider. Its certainly a more simple viewpoint, but given Rainbow's life experiences, I found that it also fit fairly well. To that end, she's perfectly willing to drag Mzungu down the mountain if she won't come quietly (in the same vein as she was willing to just attack the dragon in Dragonshy). ]

I can definitely sympathize if my writing differs from what you or other readers might expect of characters, but some degree of that change is the price that has to be accepted in exchange for character development - a factor that dominates the scene in question.

Hope that helps, or at least explains a few things. Thanks for reading!

-Loyal Liar

[Th4t Dark c0rner]

great. Now I feel depressed.

[Moak]

Nice job, loving the story so far.
Just finished reading chapter 10, there was a small possible error i noticed, either that or it just reads wrong to me.
Either way I though I would bring it up.
Instead of an enormous, coiled, snake-like beast, the room contained two relatively small figures. The first was a zebra mare, probably five or six years Dash's younger. Gold bands clinked loosely on her neck and legs with each movement as she stirred a smoking golden cauldron with a long silver ladle.

Across from her, sitting atop a huge pile of gold, was an enormous dragon. Blue scales ranging from near-black to the bright tone of Rainbow's own coat adorned his hulking form, which filled most of the cavern.

2 relatively small figures = 1 Zebra mare and a giant dragon?
Kay.......

[faren455]

What the hell hero?!

[Alchemystudent]

Well, I was expecting a fight with a dragon, heck I was even prepared to play some awesome music for this fight. Then we met him and his is like a normal DND Dragon, with a character and everything. And personally, I am with Dash on this. I can see where Smaug is coming from, but there are lives at stake beyond Luna's, Reckoning for instance. Smaug should know, she sacrificed a chance at her dream for a pony she only met the previous day. The way I see it, Dash was ready to protect life and be loyal to that, its who she is.

Keep that feeling of remose about the death in you Rainbow...it'll keep you from becoming a monster.

Oh, and DISSY! I love ya Discord.

[Fillosof]

Discord laughed aloud, and shook his head. "That would be cheating, Rainbow. I have no idea. There's no good chaos in looking at the future and coming up with - ugh - plans."

fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/170/f/9/pinkie_pie___objection_____this_cake_is_no_lie__by_dowlphin-d69tm4q.png

Those are some mighty words coming from a total failure. Come back when you will actually achieve something, sonny. Не учи отца ебаться.
In Tzeench we trust. He will make everything better.
Here, have an upgraded version of the best pony :
th07.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2013/185/0/a/horror_pinkie_pie_v_2_by_hauo-d6c15zg.png
1d4chan.org/images/3/3c/Just_as_planned_tzeentch.jpg

[SIGAWESOME]

A zebra named Mzungu

Kind of fitting I suppose, seeing how she wanted to be all Equestrian...

[arancaytar]

Ten years of hard-earned education in archeology

To be fair, though, escaping from a trapped temple ruin is, like, 101 in Archeology School; right after close combat training. :P

Smog

Wait, what's he doing so far out of Erebor?

I guess they didn't like the noise from all the weather factory machines

Especially the screaming.

Given that it was only his hooves which offered resistance to the clouds

...he'd better not stumble, then

[BabySkittleMonster]

it would be hard to know if the zebras gave special recognition to a particular cardinal direction.

East. Go East. The answer is always East. Just follow the purple light, austraeoh.

[SolidFire]

Amazing chapter again! Sad to see such an old and wise figure fall, even though we just met him, but I suppose it had to be. Shining and... that other pegasus... damn, I think one of them are probably fried. In the previous chapter though, when Luna and Celestia were talking, you keep giving these subtle hints about things. About Celestia not telling her about the 'gift' or even her friends about it. I hope all of this comes full circle later on, because my curiosity is running rampant right about now.

~SolidFire

[Alchemystudent]

* sees old comment* nope, nothing has changed. I just want to add what I kind of really love about this chapter as a whole. Mainly, Dash's Loyalty. I mean, sure, everything else (shining, The talk with Dissy, the back story with Ink ect) was fine and dandy, but Dash is the main focus here. See, Dash had to deal with conflicting defintitions of what Loyalty is. First is Loyalty, are you more loyal to the mission or your friends? To Rainbow, this is no question, she is fast enough to finish the mission at any moment, Deadeye might not have that long. This comes up again in the conversation with Smaug, does she remain loyal to this mission and lie or loyal to the child's ideas. Again the answer is plain. After all, this who she is, she is loyal to her ideals and her her ideal of staying true. She could never turn her back on ponies when their lives are in danger, even if it is a guy she only knew. As I said before, Dash threw a chance at a dream away for a pony she only knew for a DAY.

See, I don't see it as cold as some would think, just a staright forward way of looking at the world. There are ponies at stake, you need to get moving and save them. Heck, I wonder if she wasn't just also thinking "Well, why not just go, tell what is happening, and then come back." Heck, the dragon seemed reasonable, until he showed his ignorance of loyalty and trust\.

[FancyFan]

Oh man that final bit gave me chills.

[Gerald Greytalon V]

And just like that, all my respect for RD died with Smog.

[son_of_heaven176]

Wait...perhaps Smog is playing dead? I mean, a tiny stick (relatively speaking) to the eye is clearly a major annoyance, but can it make it all the way to the brain? Perhaps Smog played dead after seeing how far RBD would be willing to go in order not to lose face?

[Biker_Dash]

3534130

I guess they didn't like the noise from all the weather factory machines

Especially the screaming.

That was the Rainbow Factory, on the other side of town.

[TheCommunistDog]

So this chapter destroyed the story for me