Rainbow Dash and the Darkwing Pony

by ThomasZoey3000

Can't Fight Them Alone

Chapter 6: Can't Fight Them Alone

When she was sure the coast was clear, Rainbow Dash began making her way back to her house. She sighed as she pushed the door open, and shut them behind her. She walked through the empty hallways and towards her bedroom where she found Tank getting ready for a good night's rest. However, he did notice Rainbow's unhappy face and climbed out of his bed towards her.

"You think somepony who's been fighting alone for so long would actually want some help," she said out loud. "Yet he makes me Pinkie Promise not to go looking for him again. I can't just do that...but I made the promise. ARGH! I should've crossed my hooves behind my back. Then again, Pinkie would probably jump into the air from the false promise."

She thought back to what Diamond Tiara had said during the time Sweetie Belle was on Earth with her human counterpart.

"What do you think Tank? Is a promise more important than being loyal to your friends?" But Tank didn't move his head, he just blinked at Rainbow. She sighed unhappily, "I'm the element of loyality for crying out loud, yet I can't be loyal if I can't go out looking for him."

Tank tilted his head to the left, which Rainbow noticed. He didn't need to say any words, even if he could, Rainbow knew what he was thinking.

"Right, I said I wouldn't go out looking for him, but I never said anything about Inferno and his stupid gang. Maybe if I take them down, then Darkwing's name can be cleared and his life can return to normal. Yes, that could work. Thanks Tank, you're the best pet in the world, you know that?"

Tank just smiled.

Rainbow jumped out of her bed and flew over to her front door once more. Once outside, she looked to make sure the coast was clear, then took off into the night sky.

However, she wasn't aware that Darkwing had seen her. He knew she would find a loop-hole in her promise.

"Darn it Rainbow Dash, you need to learn to leave things alone," he thought to himself. He looked behind him and saw a couple of pegasi flying below, following Rainbow Dash. "Guess there's only one way to stop you from helping." He extended his wings and took off after the pegasi. He took them down in a flash, and flew off after Rainbow Dash.

However, he wasn't aware that a third pony had been present, only to observe. After seeing everything, the pegasus pony flew back into the Everfree Forest.

Inside a hideout recently built, Inferno sat in his big chair eating spagetti with tomato sauce. He was enjoying his meal, but he was growing angry with each slurp he took.

"They fail me time and time again, and it's really getting me peeved," he snarled. "I thought I was working with the best, not the worst. Somepony better bring me some good news in the next half hour, or I'll throw one into The Pit."

His guards at the door gulped.

"Inferno Sir!" called a voice. "I have news!" The voice belonged to the pegasus that returned from Ponyville.

"Come in then Stealth Wings," he said, still looking rather angry. "You better have good news to report, or you're up for a little trip down the pit."

The pony, known as Stealth Wings gulped, but regained composure.

"While your pegasus teams have not been doing well aganist the Darkwing, I have seen the pony we've been looking for, and she is a friend of the Darkwing."

"So, we know what she looks like. We've known that for a while now."

"But there's more Sir," Stealth Wings interupted softly. "By sneaking around Ponyville, I have overheard officers talk of the pony's name as they have dealt with her already. She goes by the name of Rainbow Dash, and get this, she's also a friend to Princess Twilight Sparkle."

An evil smirk came to Inferno's face, "a friend to the Princess of Friendship huh? Hmm, this could be very helpful to us. GAUNTLET!"

A pale green stallion earth pony stepped forward, "yes Sir, what would like us to do tonight?"

"Go to the Castle of Friendship and ponynap Princess Twilight Sparkle, and whoever's in there. And while you're there, ponynap the other ponies she and this 'Rainbow Dash' are friends with."

"Yes Sir!"

Gauntlet turned and ran off to get some of the minions. Inferno smirked, "with them here, Darkwing will have no choice but to come here and save them, and if he refuses, they'll take a trip into the pit. And if he does, well...he'll finally meet his end." Inferno started cackling with laughter, and soon his minions and guards were laughing along with him.

Rainbow Dash was soon on a rooftop and looking down to the streets of Ponyville. They were empty, and a little too quiet.

"I know we have a curfew, but surely there'd be some activity," she thought to herself. "No matter, once one of those criminals show up, I'll tackle them and get the truth out of them, Rainbow Dash style."

As she waited, Darkwing landed on the other side of the roof quietly.

"Come on you suckers, where are you?"

"They're not going to come when you ask for them to come."

Rainbow Dash gulped as she turned and saw Darkwing standing on the other side of the roof. He looked annoyed, "uh Darkwing, I wasn't expecting to see you. I'm not here looking for you, I'm..."

"Yes, yes I'm aware of what you're doing, you're trying to capture a criminal and force them to show you Inferno's hideout. You're trying to be a Darkwing of your own, sort to speak."

"I prefer blue streak, but that's not important. I want to help. It's in my nature to be loyal to my friends."

Darkwing shook his head, "your loyality will get you into a lot of trouble Rainbow Dash. These guys are not like the baddies you face all the time, these ones won't give you a chance to escape. If captured, and they find no use for you, they will kill you. Now go home, this is my last warning to you."

"Then I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you."

Again Darkwing shook his head, "I knew you'd find a loophole in your promise, but too bad you didn't think that I'd know that."

"Well...maybe I wanted you to find me after all," Rainbow Dash said hastily, which really wasn't true. "Cause now we got them where we want them to be. Just think, Darkwing Pony and Rainbow Dash working together."

"There is no working together. I work alone, and that's the way it's going to be till my dying day. And I won't have you going after criminals." In the distance, he could see Ponyville's police force walking around, "and I'm sorry to do this, but it's the only way to keep you out of my way."

"Darkwing, what are you..."

He turned around and bucked Rainbow Dash off the roof and towards the ground below. The police heard and ran towards her. She would've taken off had they not used spells to restrain her.

"Let me go! I want to help my friend!" Rainbow cried.

Darkwing sighed, "sorry, but it's for your own good. Maybe now you'll learn that loyality is worthless." He extended his wings and took off into the night sky.

"No, get back here and help me! DARKWING!" she shouted.

The officers arrested her and took her to the station, all the while she was struggling to get away and help her friend. Which didn't help her at all.

Darkwing moved over to the top of Town Hall and looked down at the town. He looked around him to see if he could spot trouble, and sure enough, he could see it moving towards the castle of friendship.

"So they found out about Rainbow and her friends, well they're not getting to them on my watch."

He took off and dashed over towards the castle's front enterance way. As the criminals were about to smash and enter, Darkwing landed in front of them, looking firece, "alright you punks, this is as far as you go! You won't be getting past me!"

Gauntlet smirked, "strike him down, hard!"

Seven ponies ran forward, ready to strike. Darkwing smirked, "you should've sent more." The first of the criminals he punched on the right side of the face, then the second one got kicked in the left front leg, knocking him down. Punches and kicks were thrown from all of them, but none could hit him, "really? Is this all you stupid fools have got?"

Gauntlet wasn't looking worried, instead he was still smirking.

"Put Plan A2 into motion now," he whispered to nopony in particular, or so Darkwing thought.

Hidden from his sight was a big pegasus pony in a black coat. He snuck up right behind Darkwing and smacked him with a two by four piece of wood. Darkwing felt the impact and within seconds, was down for the count.

"What a fool he is, trying to beat us," said the pegasus pony. "Let's see who he really is."

"No," said Gauntlet firmly. "Our orders are clear, we go into the castle of friendship. However, we can dispose of this garbage. You two," he called to other pegasi, "put him somewhere out of the way."

They nodded and lifted him up, "what about the water?"

"Why not, it'll mean the end of him."

The pegasus ponies took Darkwing towards the water and threw him in there.

"There's no way he'll survive that," snickered one of the pegasus ponies. "He's finished. Master Inferno will be pleased with us."

That wasn't all he was going to be pleased with. The minions captured Twilight Sparkle alright, as well as Starlight Glimmer and Spike. They next captured Pinkie Pie, in spite of a brawl with the Cakes, then Applejack was captured, followed easily by Rarity and Fluttershy.

Inferno smirked when they returned with the news, "what about the pony named Rainbow Dash? Did you not capture her?"

"No, we couldn't," said Stealth Wings. "You won't believe this, but that fool Darkwing had kicked her off the roof and sent her to jail. One of our own saw the event unfold."

"She's in jail?!" Inferno almost went angry, but his smirk quickly returned. "Doesn't matter, we have more than enough hostages."

"You won't need them," said one of the pegasus ponies. "We threw the Darkwing into the water. He's surely as good as dead."

The smirk seemed to get bigger on Inferno's face, "even better. Now I guess we can use our hostages to get what we want, and with that Darkwing dead, and Rainbow Dash in jail, there's nopony left to stop us."

Morning soon arrived, and with it came many sad faces in Ponyville as they learned of the ponynappings. But Darkwing wasn't dead, he had woken up minutes after being thrown into the water and swam to the service, however he still passed out upon reaching shore. When he awoke the next morning, he felt the back of his head, "darn those stupid fools, they play dirty big time."

He took to the skies and landed on a cloud. He could hear the worrying words from ponies about the Princess of Friendship and her friends being ponynapped.

"Some thugs just broke into their homes, and took them," said Silver Spoon to Scootaloo.

"They blocked our doorways to prevent us from helping," groaned Apple Bloom. "It took Big Mac till an hour ago to get us all free."

"They blocked me with a spell," added Sweetie Belle. "They took my Rarie-Roo too easily."

Scootaloo looked worried, "what about Rainbow Dash? Did they get her too?"

"No, that's the strangest thing," answered Diamond Tiara. "I heard she was taken to jail just before the ponynappings began. I don't know how she ended up there."

"There must be a mistake, Rainbow Dash is no criminal," said Scootaloo. "What is Silver Badge even thinking?"

Darkwing didn't pay any more attention to the conversations. He was thinking about his actions the night before, "at least it kept her safe from them," he thought to himself. "So I was right, plus it kept her away from me. Then again," he added, "she would've warned me about whoever it was that hit me from behind. No, what am I thinking? I work alone. Always done so, and always will."

But his mind soon replayed some thoughts from when he was a young colt, and Rainbow helped him when he needed it.

Meanwhile, back in the Ponyville jail house, Rainbow groaned as she sat in the cell. She had already heard the news from police officers, but wasn't saying a word to anypony.

"I try to be who I am; the element of loyality, and where does it get me? Thrown in jail like the rest of these scumbags," she thought to herself. "What was I even thinking?"

Silver Badge was walking past her cell at that moment. He stared angerily at her, "we warned you to stay home when the curfew was on, but you didn't listen. Why?"

"I thought I could help."

"This isn't one of your adventures Ms Dash, you need to listen to what other ponies are saying, and when we say to stay out of it, you stay out of it. Now sadly, this will have to go in your record."

"Oh great, so there's my job of being a Wonderbolt over and done with," she sighed unhappily.

"You should've thought of that when you had the chance." Silver Badge then walked away.

Rainbow kicked the ground unhappily. Then, she heard a 'psst' from outside. She walked over to the window and called out, "Who's there?"

"It's me Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash frowned, for she knew the voice belonged to Darkwing. "Go away you idiot, you've gotten me in enough trouble as it is."

Darkwing looked down unhappily, "You're right there, I have gotten you into trouble, but you have to understand, I've been working alone for a while now, and the mere thought of somepony coming to help is next to impossible. Sometimes, you have to face the world on your own, and if anypony gets in your way, you knock them down."

"Yeah like you did. I was just trying to help, yet now I'm in here, my friends are captured and I have nopony to bail me out."

There was no response from Darkwing. Rainbow sighed and went back to her seat. As she sat down though, she heard pounding sounds coming from the front of the station. A short while later, Silver Badge returned with Darkwing right behind him, "you realise attacking police officers is the wrong thing to do."

"Yeah, and so is arresting my friends who had nothing to do with this. Now let her out, and you'll remove that charge from her record."

Rainbow turned away, "What if I don't want out?"

Darkwing walked up to her cell, "I'm sorry okay? I believed in my thoughts for so long that I forgot about friendship, and how even loyality can help. Now I need your help to save your friends, and bring down Inferno and his gang. So Rainbow Dash, will you give me a lending hoof?"

Rainbow was quiet for a minute, thinking it over. She was of course mad at Darkwing for throwing her off the rooftop. However, he was breaking her out and even getting Silver Badge to remove the charge from her record, and was willing to go help save her friends.

"You'll have to earn my respect back," she said firmly. "But I'm with you."

Silver Badge unlocked the cell door, allowing Rainbow to walk out. Darkwing then lead him to the desk, and watched as he tore up the report on Rainbow Dash.

"You're free to go Ms Dash. And Mr Darkwing, you're going to end up on our most wanted list for this stunt."

"Yeah, like my life wasn't ruined already," he grumbled loud enough for Silver Badge to hear.

Once out of the police station, both pegasi took to the skies and landed on a cloud. Darkwing pointed down to the Everfree forest, "they're in there, somewhere. We just need to find one of those fools, and get the location of the hideout from them."

"But won't they see us coming? It's daylight now."

By this point, the sun was already in plain view and soon would be at it's highest point in the sky.

"We'll just have to be sneaky, and hope for the best."

A sudden memory returned to Rainbow Dash and she smirked, "hey, remember when we were younger and whenever trouble was coming, you had that pharse you liked to say?"

Darkwing looked firmly to her, "you got to be kidding me. I am not saying it."

"Hey, you kicked me off the roof, you owe me big time."

Darkwing sighed, "fine, but only for you." He took in a deep breath and said, "Rainbow Dash, let's get dangerous." He shuddered a moment later, "sweet Celestia, that sounded corny." He extended his wings and took off for the Everfree forest.

"I don't know, I think it fits you perfectly, Darkwing Pony."

"Oh for pete's sake. Just come on already."

Still smirking, Rainbow Dash extended her wings and followed Darkwing into the abyss that is the Everfree Forest, and the terrors that lay in there.