Daybreak

by Leafdoggy

Chapter 33

“Gah!”

Daybreak snapped awake violently. Her head was spinning, and she felt like she’d been kicked in the gut.

“Uugh…”

She shivered from the chill in the air, made all the worse by the fact that she was covered in sweat. It looked like she’d kicked off her blanket at some point during the night, so she pulled it back up over herself and laid down, trying to get comfortable on the hard metal floor.

Before she could even think about going back to sleep, though, a pair of shimmering blue hooves stepped into her vision.

“Are you awake?” Gooey asked.

“Mm…” Daybreak groaned and pulled the blanket up over her head. “Don’t wanna be.”

“Are you, though?”

“What do you want, Gooey?” Daybreak asked, trying not to sound annoyed.

“The sun is up,” they told her, “and I’m bored.”

“Then go do something,” Daybreak said.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m not worried,” Gooey said. “I just want you to come with me. It’s more fun that way.”

“I’m not out here to have fun,” Daybreak hissed.

“Well, why are you here?”

“I’m here to make my parents care about me.”

“Let’s go do that, then.”

“Dude, it’s the middle of the day,” Daybreak said. “I can’t go be a bad guy in broad daylight.”

“Why not?”

Daybreak groaned and threw her blanket off so she could glare at Gooey. “Cuz I’ll get caught. Duh.”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“I—” Daybreak paused. “Hm. I don’t know.”

Gooey tilted their head. “Do you even have a plan?”

Daybreak shrugged. “I was just kinda gonna go out at night and scare some ponies.”

“Will that be enough to get their attention? What if they just send some guards?”

Daybreak pursed her lips. “Well, what, do you have a better idea?”

“If you were too strong for the guards to handle, they’d have to come out.”

“I’d have to hurt a lot of ponies to look that strong.”

“Yes.”

“Do you…” Daybreak looked down at her hooves and hesitated. “Do you think I need to go that far?”

“I don’t know,” Gooey said. “I’m just bored.”

“Hm…”

---

“Alright, this is it,” Daybreak said as she stopped in front of an imposing metal door. She and Gooey were in a tight, barely-used back alley that looked like it hadn’t seen a pony in weeks. They kicked up dirt and dust with every step they took, and even the trash cans were empty and disused.

“Let’s go, then,” Gooey said, and they reached up for the handle.

“Wait!” Daybreak stuck a hoof out, and Gooey stopped. “Um… Are we sure we wanna do this?”

“I am,” Gooey said. “Are you not?”

“I just…” Daybreak took a deep breath, then shook her head. “No, I’m sure. It’s the only way I can be sure they’ll show up.”

Gooey nodded and opened the door, and the two of them walked in.

The inside of the building was dark and, aside from muffled talking coming through the wall opposite the door, eerily silent. Strips of dim light ran down the edges of the long, thin room, but they were hardly bright enough to light up the floor, much less anything else.

“This way,” Daybreak whispered as she started towards one end of the room.

The opposite wall ended before the room did, and past it, they finally saw light again. The talking was much clearer now, the loud and practiced sound of a speech being given, and in the light streaming out from the opposite side of the wall, they could see ponies standing and watching at the edges of the room.

Before they walked past the wall, Daybreak stopped Gooey and whispered into their ear. “Okay, you remember the plan, right?”

Gooey nodded. “It’s easy enough.”

Daybreak took a deep breath, then nodded. “Alright. Go whenever you’re ready.”

Gooey didn’t hesitate at all. They broke out into a sprint and skidded excitedly around the wall.

A second later, the sounds of terrified screams filled the air.

“Okay, you could have waited for a second,” Daybreak grumbled as she rushed to follow. The ponies against the wall were shellshocked and hardly seemed to notice her as she ran past them.

On the other side of the wall was a chaotic scene. What had moments before been an ordinary play had been reduced to a mass of terrified actors, trapped inside a massive bubble that they fruitlessly pounded at the walls of. Gooey was already gone, out in the crowd running to block off the exits before too many of the audience members escaped. Some had been quick and already made it out, but that was fine. After all, somepony had to go tell her parents what was happening.

Daybreak took a moment to compose herself, then walked calmly out onto the stage. Gasps rang out as the few audience members still watching the stage recognized her.

She walked nonchalantly through the bubble surrounding the actors and wandered over to the closest one. “Excuse me,” she said politely, “could I borrow your microphone?” With a shaky hoof, the scared and confused pony took off the headset they were wearing and gave it to Daybreak, who nodded and smiled as she slipped it onto her own head.

“Hello? Is this on?” She said as she walked back out of the bubble and took center stage. More of the crowd looked up at her now, and they got the attention of more and more until the entire room had given up on breaking through Gooey’s barriers and turned their attention to Daybreak.

“Good.” Daybreak smirked. “Good afternoon, everypony. I’m Princess Daybreak Nymph, and I wanna put on a play of my own. See, the other day I found out my mom used to be evil.” She chuckled. As she talked, she turned around and looked at the actors through the wall of water. “So I decided I wanted to see if it runs in the family.”

With that, Daybreak lit up her horn and focused on the actors. She put extra effort into the magic, making it as showy and extravagant as possible so that everypony in the crowd could see as she drained the fear from the helpless ponies.

One by one, the actors started to fall. First, they’d fall to their knees in pain as the long, swirling strands of magical energy were pulled out of them and into Daybreak, and then, once they were used up, the streams of magic would disappear and they would fall, unconscious, to the ground.

It took only a matter of seconds for Daybreak to completely devour every ounce of fear from the actors.

Grinning wide, she turned back to the audience and laughed. “Well, well, well. Looks like I do take after her! That’s a nice surp—”

She was cut off as a unicorn in the crowd shot of a bolt of magic at her.

She knocked it away with ease and licked her lips. “What’s that? Do we have a volunteer?”

She lit up her horn and grabbed the stallion, pulling him into the air and up onto the stage. When she dropped him, he crumpled to the ground and covered his head with his hooves.

“Oh, come on,” Daybreak said. “You’re gonna freak out now? You already attacked me!”

“I-I’m sorry,” the stallion stuttered. “Please, d-don’t hurt me.”

“Well, that’s not fair,” Daybreak said, faking a pout. “You got a shot at me. Shouldn’t I get one back? Just one? Please?”

“N-No, please!” The stallion cupped his hooves together in a pleading gesture. “Please, I’m sorry!”

Daybreak scoffed. “You grown-ups are so selfish.” She lit up her horn and, with a dramatic swipe of her hoof, ripped all the fear out of him. He didn’t even have time to scream before his body went limp and he fell to the floor.

The audience panicked. They all ran for the exits, pushing each other and slamming everything they had against Gooey’s walls as Daybreak watched them and laughed.

“Who’s next?” Daybreak shouted. “Come on! If none of you volunteer, this is gonna take all day! Which one of you is gonna take responsibility if I’m up past my bedtime, huh?”

Suddenly, there was a tremendous boom in the air outside. Daybreak looked to the far end of the room, trying to see what happened, but all she could make out past Gooey’s barriers was a strange mix of colors.

Then there was a crash. A blue blur sped into the room, accompanied by debris from the hole knocked through the ceiling, and pulled to a stop in the air in front of Daybreak.

Daybreak’s eyes went wide, and she took a step back. “R-Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Daybreak?”

Daybreak frowned. “Where are my moms?”

“They’re out looking for you, kid.”

“What? But… But there’s a supervillain! They’re supposed to come stop me!”

“That’s why I’m here,” Rainbow Dash said. “I mean, seriously, what the heck?” She gestured vaguely at the scene around. “What are you thinking?”

“What I’m thinking is that if I’m a supervillain, they might actually care about me!”

“Wh—” Rainbow Dash gave her a blank look. “Dude, that’s crazy. I can’t even begin to tell you how—Woah!” She cut herself off and had to quickly dodge out of the way to avoid a blast of magic shot by Daybreak.

“I don’t care! I’m not stopping unless they stop me!” She shot another bolt that narrowly missed.

“Daybreak, this isn’t a game,” Rainbow Dash said. “You’re hurting ponies! If you won’t stop on your own, I’m gonna have to make you stop, and I don’t wanna do that!”

“Yeah, cuz you know you’d lose.”

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes at Daybreak. “Oh, we’ll see about that, kid.”