Rainbow Dash's Awesome Nightmare Night Haunted House Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Adventure

by TheDriderPony

You Have Nothing to Fear...

You hesitate of the precipice of a decision that feel so much weightier than it has any reason to be. Just remove them. Your boss has told you to, it takes you no effort, and they're totally inappropriate for the workplace.

…And yet something deep within you keeps screaming at you to stop. To not make this one concession. That the bunny ears are somehow terribly important. If only you could remember why.

Where did you even get them, anyways? You rack your brain, struggling against some mental block for the memory. You recognize them as definitely yours, but since when? And from who?

No... not who. What. It was a rabbit. A giant rabbit made of dust. That's where you got them! And you fought it! Or... maybe made friends with it? The memory still isn't totally clear.

But with that revelation it's like a crack has formed in your mental block. Bits and pieces begin to drift through. There was something to do with a house, an old run-down one. Why had you been in such an unsafe place? Wouldn't someone have warned you about the dangers?

They did. Starlight Glimmer! She warned you before you went in about the potential dangers of the... of the...

The memory struggles to come forth, pushing and thrashing against its shackles like an angry bull! It hurts, like your head is tearing and tearing and splitting open and—

Haunted house!

With a final push the memory bursts free and with it comes an avalanche of context. It was a haunted house! So many questions are suddenly answered and the path before you, once murky, becomes clear as day.

"Rainbow Dash!!" You're snapped from your deep well of introspection and revelation by your manager's incensed holler. Your turn to the stallion you know so well, finally realizing that this is your first time meeting. He's absolutely livid. Face red like a cherry tomato, practically frothing at the mouth, and so many veins bulging on his forehead you can count them. "I demand that you take those ridiculous ears off immediately and give them to me to be disposed of! This is your last warning before this this insubordination goes in your permanent record!!"

Calm as a cucumber, you survey the room. Everyone's eyes are on you, all those ponies you know, yet don't. You're the center of attention.

Just like you like it.

"Nah, I think I'll keep 'em on. I make 'em look cool."

Bottom Line's face goes blank, like he has no idea how to process this turn of events.

"You can take these though." With the strength of hooves no longer crippled by carpal tunnel, you rip off your pantyhose in one clean motion and toss them in his general direction. They drape themselves delicately over his poleaxed expression.

"You know what?" you ask rhetorically as you stand, familiar strength returning to your body. "Not only do I not feel like redoing all of that brownnoser's work." You gesture to Rising Star, who can't decide whether to look nervous or scowl at you. "I don't feel like doing any work at all."

With a sweep of your foreleg you throw everything on your desk to the floor. Quills, inkpots, notepads, even the Leaning Tower of Inbox all scatter like dry leaves set before an incoming storm.

"M-Miss Dash!" It seems that was enough to knock Bottom Line out of his stupor. "This is highly inappropriate workplace behavior!"

"Inappropriate?" you ask, voice high and innocent. "How terrible! Then I'd better be much more careful in the future." You shoot him a smile as your back hoof slams into the cubicle wall with a textbook-perfect applebucking kick. The cheap material collapses easily and takes the next two walls down with it. "Whoops!"

A hip check sends a second wall tumbling, ponies without names scrambling to get out of the way. "Clumsy me!"

"S-stop this at once!" the impotent sad sack of a stallion demands. "That's company property you're damaging!"

"Is it?" you muse as a third wall falls to you striking it. "I guess the company should have invested more in its support staff and infrastructure. I mean, just look at this!" You fly over to the break area, grab the coffee machine and chuck it at the photocopier. Both explode to bits in a miniature mushroom cloud. "Wow. One mare decides she's not going to play by the rules anymore and your whole house of cards just comes crumbling down. Sounds like poor management is to blame."

Bottom Line follows your path of destruction at a gallop, slowing when he gets near and wincing every time you smash another fixture to the ground. "Is this about the report? I can hand that off to somepony else if it's too much for you. One of the interns? Rising Star?"

"Nope." You punt the water cooler across the room.

"The overtime? I know we've been pushing you hard lately, but I can talk to corporate about—"

"Not that either~!"

"How about—" he swallows hard and grimaces "—a promotion? You've been a very loyal employee, today notwithstanding, and I'm sure I could sweet talk the regional manager into creating a new position for you. Think about it! Better hours, a corner office. You can even have one of my interns!"

You glance away from where you're currently dual-wielding a pair of long florescent bulbs against the plastic potted tree to give your former boss an easygoing smile. "Still not happening! Face it, there's nothing you can say, nothing you can offer me 'cause you're not even real!"

"I... what?"

"I never left the haunted house! This is all an illusion! And the only way out..." You laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all. "Is to shatter it."

"Please, Miss Da- Rainbow. Just calm down. You're having a psychotic break."

You stand atop a pile of desks and shattered chairs, bunny ears proudly on your head and freedom in your heart. "There's nothing you can do to me anymore! I'm not some old grey mare who wasted her life. I am Rainbow! Freaking! Dash! And ponies are gonna remember my name for generations!"

"You're mad!"

"Oh yeah? Well would a mad pony do this?"

You leap from your castle and, with illusory decades worth of built up resentment behind you, you sucker punch your manager right in the jaw.

It shatters into pieces on impact. Along with the rest of his body, the walls, and everything else.

When the glittering haze of magic particles from the broken illusion finally settles, you find yourself back where you started. Behind the lichen-covered desk in the dilapidated study of Starlight and Trixie's haunted house.

You ease up and shake your head a few times to clear out the lingering fog of fake memories. Your job? Wonderbolt and Hero. Your pet? Tank, the most awesome tortoise in the world. Your age? Still young and in your prime.

Everything is as it should be once again.

You shake your head again, ruefully this time, and chuckle. "Phew. Now that was a headtrip. Points to Starlight, I totally believed it. Up until the ears." You reach up and feel them still there. You decide to leave them, even if you see your friends later. They've earned the right to compliment your awesomeness.

As you stand to leave, you notice a clean stack of Paperwork on the desk that wasn't there before. A closer inspection reveals a familiar header. It's the report that drove you to the breaking point. You glance at the first page and find that the text is all nonsense gibberish, the letters shifting and changing when you stop focusing on them. You shrug and put it in your Inventory anyway. Might come in handy at some point.

You step back into the fancy hallway and close the door behind you. That was certainly a crazy experience, but not it's time to move on to the next one.

---

There are six paths open to you from this point. There's a DOOR next to you and also two across the hall. The hallway itself continues both to the LEFT and RIGHT and also has a secondary path splitting off to your RIGHT.

Author's Note:

What Will You Do?

[TAKE THE LEFT DOOR ON THE FAR SIDE]
[TAKE THE RIGHT DOOR ON THE FAR SIDE]
[TAKE THE DOOR TO YOUR RIGHT]
[CONTINUE DOWN LEFT HALLWAY]
[CONTINUE DOWN RIGHT HALLWAY]
[GO DOWN THE HALLWAY THAT TURNS OFF]