The Collapse

by Lightwavers

Chapter 5

The grass was stupid. The mountains were stupid. The path that wasn’t even a real path, just a place with slightly less grass was stupid. The cold that she was used to only feeling at high speeds and altitudes was stupid. The one thing that wasn’t stupid was the Everfree. The evil forest hadn’t taken her wings, it had taken worse: her magic. Without her wings she would look stupid and wouldn’t be able to steer very well, but she had plenty of practice dealing with crashes and would still be able to fly.

But without her magic, Rainbow Dash was nothing. She wasn’t the best flier in Ponyville, and probably Equestria. She wasn’t the pony who would one day, after she’d practiced her routine enough to get it down perfectly, join the Wonderbolts and become its most awesome member from day one.

The Everfree had taken everything from Rainbow Dash. And for that, it wasn’t stupid. It was a nemesis. And when Rainbow Dash finally found a unicorn who could make her a magic Everfree shield, she would go back to that forest and tear it apart. She wouldn’t need any unicorn magic or earth pony strength or even pegasus magic. No, she would tear the Everfree apart with the one thing she had left: her wits.

“Do you...do you maybe want to talk about it?” the frail yellow pegasus beside her asked.

She was always doing stuff like that. Rainbow Dash vaguely remembered her from flight camp. She had barely been able to do more than flail helplessly as the wind tossed her about like a leaf.

“No. Because there’s nothing to talk about. I’m going to find someone who can actually help instead of running away from the source of all our problems.”

“Oh—okay,” Fluttershy squeaked and scurried to the back of their little group. Thunderlane snorted.

“Look,” he said, “boss. I get it. You’re upset. We all are. But I think what she’s trying to say is, well, how are you going to do it? You can’t just kick a lightning cloud over the—you can’t just kick the Everfree forest and expect it to give us our homes or our magic back. It’s a force of nature.”

Rainbow Dash sighed. Why did she have to explain something so simple?

“It’s an ancient evil,” she said significantly. Nothing.

“The Everfree. It’s an ancient evil.” Still nothing.

She huffed at them. “These sorts of things always have something at the middle that makes them tick. Take the thing out, and it stops ticking.”

It was perfectly obvious. She couldn’t see how they weren’t getting it. She wouldn’t even need earth pony or unicorn magic. Or even pegasus magic. All she needed were her wits and a magic shield that would keep the Everfree from instantly overpowering her until she found whatever made it evil.

“Rainbow Dash, I don’t think this is really about the Everfree for you,” Fluttershy said.

Rainbow found herself lost for words for a moment at such blatant stupidity.

“Um, Fluttershy, you know that the Everfree caused all of this, right?”

“No, I mean...what would you do if you got rid of the Everfree and your magic didn’t come back?” Fluttershy said the last part extremely fast and then hid her face behind her bangs, one eye peeking out of it as if trying to gauge Rainbow’s reaction.

She needn’t have worried.

“Hah. As if. Even if it doesn’t come back immediately, some egghead unicorn will eventually figure it out. Or maybe even Celestia could do it. Getting rid of the Everfree will probably also get rid of whatever made her go missing,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Okay,” Fluttershy said softly, retreating in defeat.

Well, it would probably be a good idea to get a bird’s-eye—to scout the surrounding area. The Wonderbolts should’ve left them someone who could still fly. Rainbow Dash felt blind this close to the ground. And she had to walk on it. And-And Sleep on it. That last thought made her shudder. The last time she’d slept, she’d woken up with mud and bits of grass clinging to her. She’d washed it off in a nearby stream, but the cold, sticky feeling had lingered for hours afterward.

“Up there; someone’s kicking up dust!”

Rainbow Dash was instantly on alert. A group of magicless pegasi was easy prey for any griffon or creature from the Everfree. She focused on the small brown cloud in the distance but couldn’t make out whatever the source of it was.

“Thunderlane, go ahead with me and scout it out. Everyone else, follow at a safe distance and try to keep a low profile. We’ll come back and give a shout if it’s safe.”

“Why do you always pick me to do everything?” Thunderlane whined.

“Because you get my attention the most,” Rainbow Dash said, already settled into a crouch and beginning to stalk toward the dust cloud.

“Captain, you look ridiculous.”

“Shut up,” Rainbow Dash said, but adjusted her stance as she continued to walk.

“If you don’t go faster than a turtle, we’ll never catch up to—”

“Yes, Thunderlane, I get it,” Rainbow said.

---

"Seriously? None of you—”

“We will!”

Two familiar ponies approached Rainbow Dash, one green and the other white.

“Lyra? Rarity? What are you two doing here?”

“Trying to go back to Ponyville, of course. Though we need a unicorn that can pull off a decent shield spell first,” Rarity said.

“Wait, but—gah. Figures. The first unicorns I find who actually want to go to the Everfree don’t know how to do a shield either.”

Before Rarity or Lyra could respond, a purple unicorn with six stars surrounding a bigger one as her cutie mark walked up to the discussion.

“I can’t listen to this anymore! You three are plotting suicide. Su-i-cide. You are going to get yourselves killed. It will not be fun.”

So it was another coward trying to give out excuses before she had to refuse to help.

“Don’t worry, we won’t need you,” Rainbow said with a wave of her hoof. “It would speed things up, is all. I’ll hire us a unicorn who isn’t scared of her own shadow once we get to Manehattan.”

“You realize that’d cost you—”

“Yep.”

“And there’s no guarantee that—”

“Mmm hmm.”

“I give up. You win. I’m done trying to convince you lot not to kill yourselves. But when the Everfree is eating you, don’t blame me.”

With that, the purple unicorn stomped off to do whatever unicorns do in their free time. Probably criticize things they can’t do themselves.

“Anyway, there’s apparently a bunch of fighting going on in all the port cities,” Rainbow Dash resumed the conversation as if nothing had happened. “It’s probably fighting over the boats, so we should be good. Rarity, you’re practically a noble. You know what fancy places are like; when we get there, you lead the way to the fanciest unicorn spell pony there is. I have a ton of bits in the bank so cost shouldn’t matter.”

They continued planning as the endless night wore on and on. She would have to sleep on the ground again. In the dirt. At least Rarity understood her pain.

Comments

[DeskManiac]

Okay, so this is where things get confusing. Did Rainbow's team just meet up with Twilight's team? Does Rainbow already know Twilight in this universe? Are they going to split up? Because the second half of this chapter leaves a lot of questions for me. It seems to me that Rainbow has just met the group, but Rainbow and Twilight's conversation doesn't show that. It seems that they've just met and aren't even glad or at least surprised to have met another group in the forest. They just went straight to talking about taking the Everfree. So what's going on?

I just don't know what happened in the second half of the chapter. It just felt like there was a huge leap in the plot and there were too many things left unexplained.